IMO regulators have arrived at the next stage of cleaner shipping regulation, sulphur cap in hand, and will alter the face of shipping as a result.
Shipowners fear that the new regulation will create an uneven environment with the new sulphur regulations offering an incentive for unscrupulous ship operators to ignore the regulation allowing them to undercut operators who do comply.
“When you have a very high compliance cost, coupled with a weak enforcement environment the temptation not to comply is created,” argues Roger Strevens, VP global head of environment at Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics and a member of the Trident Alliance, an owners group formed in July this year to offer an owners’ view on the regulation.
Strevens is under no illusions how the industry will be affected by the new operating landscape. Up to now, he says, fuel has comprised 50% of an owner’s costs, from January that will leap by another 50% as compliant owners will need to either use scrubbers, if they are fitted, or buy low sulphur fuel (LSF) at around US$900/tonne.
“Few industries could absorb that level of cost increase and shipowners are not used to passing on such costs to customers,” claims Strevens.
According to Strevens, who says that Rosa Antidormi, from the EC DG Environment, Industrial Emissions, Air Quality & Noise Unit, had provided a report that showed that in 2012 some fines for ECA non-compliance had amounted to a paltry €290 (US$370), “there are bigger fines for illegally parking your car in Oslo,” complains Strevens.
He adds: “Even an US$85,000 fine is comparatively small when you consider that operating one of our ships costs around US$20,000/day/ship, this is not what adds up to a proportionate, effective and reasonable deterrent.” What is more the EC report said that only one in every thousand ships are tested for compliance in any case, a paltry number by anyone’s standards.
Torsten Klimke head of team at the EC’s sustainable shipping and international maritime transport unit, says: “We know it’s not good enough [the compliance monitoring], but we are limited to a certain degree, the EU does not set fines, the member states set the fines and these need to be adequate and incentivise compliance.”
In addition Klimke says that if the EU member states do not improve the EC can initiate infringement cases against the countries involved and ultimately pursue cases up to the European Court of Justice.
Compliance will, however, also require monitoring and the considerations around this subject are far from clear. Strevens believes that there is “no silver bullet” as far as monitoring is concerned and that a combination of sniffers, drones and satellites if used in the correct manner will all be needed to monitor compliance.
The EU is largely in agreement with Strevens’ view, but Klimke adds that the EU is currently looking at creating a database to be operated by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) for the purpose of coordinating the ship checking process, this would help national administrations to be aware of which ships had been checked and would therefore avoid any double checking.
More than one company is attempting to fill the monitoring gap. Kittiwake subsidiary Parker Procal, believes that it has a system that can help to monitor vessel emissions accurately and cheaply over a prolonged period with little need for maintenance.
Business development manager at Parker Procals Steve Dye The Naval Architect that Europe does not have the regulatory infrastructure to meet the demands of the new regulatory regime.
“In the US there is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which is a federal organisation which sets a minimum requirement for a rule, each state can then make the rules more onerous, but they can’t set a level below the minimum standard,” explains Dye.
Procal believes it has the answer to the monitoring conundrum with its analyser which sits in the exhaust system and analyses the gases being emitted and the levels of gases from the exhaust.
“It is a cost effective solution, costing around US$20,000 to install with few running costs and the system is proven on land-based monitoring systems,” says Dye, which he says will operate successfully for 15 years on land with only minor maintenance once a year. “We have had the shake and bake test by class and the system passed.”
Source: RINA (Royal Institution of Naval Architects)
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