The Filipino Shipowners Association (FSA), recently warned the domestic shipping field that Philippines may not be prepared to comply with the IMO 2020 global sulphur cap, which begins from the 1st January 2020. With exactly three weeks left until the official force of the regulation, the Philippines express their concerns.
Specifically, Philippines along with India, Greece, Indonesia and Russia have expressed their worries of sulphur cap this year. The chairman and president of the Filipino Shipowners Association, Dario Alampay reported that they faced several difficulties as there was not enough compliant fuel oil across the archipelago.
Alampay who is leading the local shipping lines Westwind Shipping Corporation and Baliwag Navigation, requested from Filipino authorities to seek a delay from the IMO about the local implementation of the sulphur cap. “I sit with the Marina board. Knowing that oil companies in the Philippines will not be ready to have this compliant- fuel, I told Marina to ask the IMO to give us allowance to comply with it” as Dario Alampay further reported to the Manila Times.
Moreover, the Association’s president made his suggestion to put fines to the oil refineries rather that the owners, in case they are found to not be supplying enough quantities of low sulphur fuel, from the start of the next year. Concluding, the IMO has made clear several times that there will be no exceptions and delays to the beginning of the sulphur cap.
