Asia/Pacific News
China's Marine Fuel Quality "Lags Behind That of Major Developed Countries"
Emissions from the shipping industry are continuing to come under the spotlight in China, with a recent local media report suggesting the country was failing to keep pace with its peers.
"Right now, China's marine fuel quality lags behind that of major developed countries," a report on China Radio International's English Service noted.
"Ship emissions now remain the third largest source of air pollution in China, following vehicles exhaust and factory emissions."
The report also said that a ship using fuel with a 3.5 percent sulfur content was "tantamount to that of 210 thousand trucks per day" and that "the pollutants contain dozens of toxic chemicals that pose critical damage to people's health."
While the current global sulfur cap for marine fuel sits at 3.5 percent, the current global average for bunkers is around 2.6 percent sulfur.
Nevertheless, the report adds to an increasing sentiment in China that legislation should be brought in to curb vessel emissions, matching that of Emissions Control Area (ECA) rules in Europe and North America.
In June Ship & Bunker reported that a draft amendment to China's Air Pollution Law was tabled that would require ships travelling inland or river-to-sea waterways to switch to "standard diesel fuel" to reduce emissions, a move that followed a Chinese ministry official earlier in the month acknowledging that the "environmental pollution problems caused by shipping are becoming more evident."
Also in June, Hong Kong's under-secretary for the environment Christine Loh said a low-sulfur zone proposed for the Pearl River Delta (PRD) has a high chance of success.
