Leading shipping industry and environmental organisations are concerned that the enforcement of the 0.5% sulphur cap will be very challenging. As a result, there are proposals being put to this week’s IMO PPR 5 meeting to make even the carriage of non-compliant fuels illegal from 2020.
Major industry players recently supported that making it an offence to carry non-compliant shipping fuels would be the most effective way to enforce the ban on such fuel being burned at sea.
The proposal results from growing concerns from the signatories that, as complying with the low-sulphur fuels requirement will cost ship operators money, some ships will honour the new rules when they are close to ports, but then switch to cheaper high-sulphur fuel on the open seas.
“Such violations of the ban will be facilitated by the fact that carriage of non-compliant fuels are not prohibited under the current rules. This places the burden of proof for non-compliance on the authorities if ships are found to be carrying non-compliant fuel oils in bunker tanks without having a certified equivalent compliance method,” explained Transport & Environment.
Therefore the proposed ban of carriage of non-compliant fuels from 2020 would mean that any ship operator tempted to carry high-sulphur fuel with the intention to burn it on the open seas would risk being caught at the port at the start or end of their journey when enforcement is easier, and therefore would not carry the fuel at all.
The proposals to ban the carriage of non-compliant shipping fuels focus on amending Annex VI of the MARPOL Convention. A number of international associations representing the global shipping industry, as well as the Cook Islands and Norway, have already submitted proposals to IMO to ban the carriage of non-compliant fuels.
The IMO rule that comes into effect in 2020 allow exemptions from low-sulphur fuels, but only for ships using an approved alternative and equivalent compliance method.
