We met again with Captain Yusuf Özcan Demir, the owner of the company Oddyship Yazılım ve Danışmanlık, after an interval of approximately one year. Another point Demir emphasized, who says “Our goal is to produce new policies and make joint investments with the 374 ships and 91 companies using our system. Because we know that this process is not sustainable just by paying taxes and fines,” is this: As OddyShip, we are not just a group that collects data, reports it, and calculates fines or taxes. We provide support to the sector regarding new technologies and possible improvements that can be made on ships.
Looking at the developments on the OddyShip side over the past year, Captain Yusuf Özcan Demir said that their software product saw very serious demand, “While our 2025 target in the sector was to reach 300 ships, we reached 374 ships. These 374 ships are under 91 domestic and foreign companies. We have undertaken the collection of data from these 91 companies, the preparation of MRV, EU & UK /MRV-ETS, FuelEU, and also IMO DCS reports, obtaining their certificates, and tracking subsequent tasks. In addition, we have prepared over 2000 monitoring plans under EU, UK, and IMO scopes. We have carried out many projects with NGOs such as KOSDER, Gemi Brokerleri Derneği, etc. For the past 9-month period of 2025, we have managed a commodity equivalent to approximately 10 million euros in tax and 3 million euros in fines with the software we call GHG GENIUS. By the end of this year, we estimate that we will manage 13 million euros in CARBON tax and approximately 3.5 million euros in FuelEU fines through the reports to be presented and certificates to be obtained via our GHG GENIUS software. Of course, this portrait is pleasing from our perspective. Our goal is now to produce new policies and make joint investments with this many ships and companies. Because we know that this process is not sustainable just by paying taxes and fines. We will definitely need to start talking about decarbonization projects, which are very current today, such as the use of alternative fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on ships, some investments to be made on board, retrofits, carbon capture, sails, propellers, etc. We believe that acting together with such a large group will be to everyone’s benefit. In this sense, we carry a justified pride.”
Correct calculation of taxes and fines
Emphasizing that they try to protect shipowners at the highest level with the data they obtain in tax and fine calculations, Demir said:
“For example, on a ship consuming approximately 5 thousand tons of fuel annually, a difference of 9-10 tons can emerge during checks made on logbooks and BDNs when preparing the year-end report. This difference corresponds to 0.2% of the total fuel and is often seen as a small ratio by shipowners. However, just the tax on these 10 tons of fuel is approximately 2,500 euros (assuming an EUA unit price of 78 euros), and its fine is approximately 400 euros. So, there is a risk of an extra 2,900 euros leaving the shipowner’s pocket that year.
Our system and service model come into play exactly at this point. We offer all these works, including data collection, reporting, obtaining certificates, and managing tax-fine processes, for a year at a cost of only one-third of that 2,900 euros. Therefore, this difference is very valuable for us.
Our software infrastructure and our team work for days if necessary to determine the reason for such discrepancies; our goal is always to present the most accurate and fair calculation in favor of the shipowner.
The shipowner must absolutely reach the most accurate result; they must be protected from potential losses and should not pay unnecessary penalties or taxes. Our approach is exactly this: The shipowner should not lose money, on the contrary, they should gain.”
End-to-end company policy
Reminding that they have been serving the sector in the energy field since 2012, Demir said, “As OddyShip, we try to implement an end-to-end service policy,” and continued as follows:
“The key point here is this: We take into account all existing regulations within the scope of ship energy management, and we directly undertake the operations that need to be done within the framework of these rules. We cover every step, including the preparation of all reports and information required by shipowners, the management of necessary certificates and approval mechanisms, and the processes for paying the resulting tax. Especially, the procurement of carbon commodities at the most optimal prices and from the most correct sources, and making payments to the relevant administrations at the right time are also within our area of responsibility.
Specifically for FuelEU, instead of paying the penalty directly, we relieve shipowners of this burden by including them in the most cost-effective and sustainable pooling systems. OddyShip is not just a company that collects and reports data; it is also a carbon broker and pooling system manager. We manage this balance by bringing together ships that have not incurred penalties and have accumulated excess compliance with ships that have a shortfall. Under the 2024 MRV ETS, we successfully transferred approximately 45,000 tons of EUAs. We expect this value to triple in 2025.
In addition, we provide comprehensive consultancy to shipowners on issues such as tracking the obligations that need to be taken over from previous owners in new ship purchases, determining contract behavior models in new charters (charter in/out), preparing BIMCO compliant agreements, and correctly defining responsibilities with third parties.
This holistic service approach of ours has received great appreciation in the sector. We primarily focused on the Turkish market and achieved growth beyond our targets. Now we have directed a significant part of our energy to foreign markets. In a very short time, we started serving more than 60 ships abroad and we know this number will increase rapidly.
For us, the most important thing is the satisfaction of our business partners we work with and establishing long-term sustainable business relationships,” he said.
Investment in human resources
Saying that they use a significant part of their earnings to invest in subjects or products that are the needs of the sector, Demir stated, “We allocate a very serious share to human resources. Our team has now reached a core staff of 15 people, including interns, in our Istanbul and Izmir offices. We have a structure that sometimes reaches 30-35 people together with our business partners. We have a very young staff. Our average age is 29. Three people in our team, outside their own fields of expertise, have enrolled in academic education programs with the support of our company in energy management, carbon management, and new technology management.
“We consider learning, data collection, and keeping up with technology not only as a commercial element but also in the sense of an academic culture,” he said.
We established our design office
Demir stated, “I would like to mention this with particular pride; OddyShip is a company that has established its own design office and will very soon launch it to the sector. The design department is of strategic importance to us because, to date, we have completed the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis of over 100 ships. Furthermore, within the scope of energy efficiency, we have also successfully carried out retrofit and conversion projects for many ships.
We do not want to be a company that merely acquires and applies new technologies from abroad; our goal is to develop and produce our own technology in Turkey. Our design team consists of experienced naval architects trained in Turkey and specialists who are lecturers or pursuing PhDs at various universities abroad.
Our short-term primary goal is to conduct detailed examinations of ships in the 5000–5250 GRT range, specifically to confirm the accuracy of their current GRT values and, if necessary, make the required corrections. Our shipowners and their representatives are well aware of the importance of this matter.
In the medium and long term, we want to identify the most efficient and applicable improvements on a ship-by-ship basis for our business partners’ fleets and also take an active role in the implementation phase of these projects.
Furthermore, we aim to provide companies with comprehensive technical consultancy and project management support during processes involving structural changes on ships, retrofit projects stemming from energy efficiency focus or operational needs, new equipment installations or equipment changes, and /DWT optimization.
We are working on Onshore Power Supply, Carbon Capture, and Offshore Wind topics
Drawing attention to the “carbon capture” technology, which is still quite new in the maritime sector, Demir said, “Our engineers have been conducting studies for a long time to measure the benefits these equipment provide both in terms of emission reduction and energy efficiency.”
“I would like to share our triple strategic partnership with the Netherlands-based company ‘CARBOTREAT MARITIME’, which develops carbon capture systems for application in land and maritime sectors, and ‘PLANETA ENGINEERING’, which handles the engineering work,” said Demir, adding that they predict the application of this technology on ships will rapidly become widespread once the IMO MEPC 83 decisions become official. He stated that developments in this area will give a new direction to the sector.
Demir also emphasized that the Onshore Power Supply (OPS) system, which under the FuelEU Maritime regulation will become mandatory only for container and passenger ships after 2030, has been defined as an accepted method for reducing port emissions with the IMO MEPC 83 decisions:
“With this development, we assess that this technology, which can directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions for all ships of 5000 GRT and above, will become widespread not only in certain ship types but in all ships in the upcoming period.
One of the topics we have started working on is Offshore Wind.”
Stating that OddyShip has a strong engineering team that closely follows the development of this and similar new technologies, Demir said, “We will share all these innovations and their impacts on the sector in detail with sector representatives at a special event we will organize in the coming days.”
Demir concluded his words by saying, “The future of our sector lies not only in complying with existing regulations but also in adopting new technologies at the right time.”
IMO Net-Zero Standard (NZS) and LCA – Life Cycle Assessment Applications
Demir said, “We have IMO’s regulations regarding greenhouse gas emissions ahead of us. It is planned to come into effect in 2028. A version very similar to this tax and penalty system that the entire sector is talking about for Europe is coming before us for the entire world. In Turkey, the ETS system will also be implemented very soon, simultaneously. It seems that whatever taxes and penalty burdens our shipowner faces for the trade they do today will increase manifold in the future. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to look into alternative fuel uses and new technologies and evaluate them. Questions like which ship, which fuel are very frequently asked questions in the sector. There is no organization or institution that knows the answer to this. The reason is the policy made by the IMO and the European Union in the transition to new generation fuels; apply, see, and decide. That is, they are not applying the logic of analyzing in advance, measuring, doing your laboratory work, reaching a conclusion, finding the right one, and telling the sector. Because this takes too long. We are trying to present the best possible elements to shipowners by evaluating the existing data and all options for existing ships and new builds.”
Penalties entered our lives this year
Saying that the “FuelEU penalty” entered our lives for the first time in the sector this year, Demir said, “There are three answers to the question of how we will manage this. Either we will pay this penalty, use the pooling option, or incur debt for future years. We are guiding our shipowners not to choose the method of incurring debt for future years or paying the penalty. Because in both cases, an interest rate of 1.1 like operates each year. The pooling system today offers solutions with a budget of about one-third of the current penalties. We are also directing our shipowners there. If the IMO implements a global tax and penalty system related to greenhouse gas emissions, the ETS system in Europe, meaning the tax system, will remain. However, there is an opinion that the FuelEU, meaning the penalty system, will be re-evaluated and perhaps completely disappear. We, as OddyShip, are closely following this entire process. Our aim is both to take a position according to newly emerging situations and to announce this information to the sector.”
