The Danish Maritime Authority announced the launch of a large drone, that will be used to check emissions from vessels operating in Danish waters to make sure they comply with the sulphur limit. The European Maritime Safety Agency is providing the drone, aiming to prevent ship pollution.
Consultancy Rystad Energy stated that IMO’s 2020 regulation, concerning sulphur emissions, will result to a deficit of 600,000 barrel per day of marine gasoil in 2020. The share of VLSFO and other compliant fuel oil blends will be low, because ship owners seem reluctant to adopt the new fuel immediately.
During his presentation at the last GREEN4SEA Conference, Mr. Bill Stamatopoulos, VeriFuel’s Business Development Manager for South Europe, discussed the possible challenges that the shipping industry will face regarding the 2020 compliant fuels regulation. Mr. Stamatopoulos explained that the supply chain must cooperate and improve transparency in the bunker sector when the 2020 sulphur cap regulation comes into force.
COSCO Shipping Lines has reached to a low sulphur fuel oil supply agreement with Double Rich Limited, which is a subsidiary of China Marine Bunker (Petro China). Double Rich will now supply COSCO with compliant 0.5% fuel, complying with the upcoming IMO 2020 sulphur cap. COSCO said that this agreement promotes the company’s emission reduction technology, and it improves its management pattern. COSCO will now also advance its GREEN Shipping.
UAE-based bunker supplier GP Global informed that it will be preparing to start providing 0.5% sulphur fuel starting from the beginning of April ahead of the IMO 2020 sulphur cap. The fuel will be available in major ports and at delivery points of Rotterdam/ARA, Fujairah and Singapore. By the fourth quarter of 2019, the company plans to extend the LSFO availability to smaller ports as well.
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that the share of high sulphur residual fuel oil consumed as bunker in the US will fall from 58% in 2019 to 3% in 2020, and then rebounds to 24% in 2022. The Administration highlights that the regulations will affect petroleum supply, demand, and trade flows on a more long-term basis.
As IBIA reports, a standard IMO format for reporting non-availability of compliant fuel oil has been developed, as well as guidance for how such reports should be investigated by authorities. However, there is no resolution yet about how to deal with any bunkers that are over the 0.50% sulphur limit, which remain on board a ship when the carriage ban takes effect.
Euronav has chartered a tanker to bring a 30,000 tonne cargo of low-sulphur fuel oil from northwest Europe to Malta, where its megatanker, Oceania, is located since January 12. The tanker loaded the low-sulphur fuel from Antwerp and is expected to reach Malta on March 20, Then it will probably transfer the fuel onto the ultra large crude carrier via ship-to-ship operation.
As the world is preparing for IMO’s 2020 sulphur cap fuel regulation, oil major ExxonMobil’s marine fuels outfit is innovating to be at the forefront of the emerging low sulphur market, as Forbes reports. The oil major sees the sulphur regulations as an opportunity and not as an operational problem.
BP Marine announced that it will begin to retail low sulphur fuel that complies with upcoming MARPOL regulations which are limiting the sulphur content of marine fuels. Namely, BP will be introducing the new very low sulphur fuel oil, with a maximum 0.5% sulphur content, after conducting successful sea trials in the Amsterdam/Rotterdam/Antwerp and Singapore hubs.
