Accepting the inevitable on sulphur

SOMETIMES there comes a point in a battle where it becomes blindingly obvious you are not going to win. That was the position shipowners group International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has found itself in. The issue was when should an already agreed global 0.5 per cent sulphur in fuel cap come into effect everywhere outside IMO-designated Emissions Control Areas (ECAs). Within ECAs an even stricter 0.1 per cent limit already applies.

Last week, ICS issued a statement saying it had agreed that the shipping and bunker refining industries "should work to the possibility" that the cap, required by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), is "more likely to be implemented worldwide from 2020, rather than 2025".

Speaking after an ICS board meeting in London, ICS chairman Masamichi Morooka explained: "While postponement of the sulphur global cap until 2025 is still a possibility, the shipping and oil refining industries should not assume that this will happen simply because they are unprepared. ICS has concluded that, for better or worse, the global cap is very likely to be implemented in 2020, almost regardless of the effect that any lack of availability of compliant fuel may have on the cost of moving world trade by sea."