NEDA Maritime MRV-Ready, Says Verifavia

Following a "pre-verification GAP-Analysis" by Verifavia, NEDA Maritime is said to be "on course" for compliance with the EU's MRV regulation.

Verifavia Shipping (Verifavia) has announced that, following a "pre-verification GAP-Analysis," Neda Maritime Agency Co. Ltd (NEDA Maritime) has been cleared as MRV-ready and "on course" for compliance with the European Union's (EU's) Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) regulation.

As Ship & Bunker has previously reported, shipping companies must submit ship-specific monitoring plans to verifiers for approval by the end of the August 2017, with per-voyage monitoring set to start on January 1, 2018.

Verifavia says the benefit of the pre-verification process, which assesses the existing data accounting procedures and systems against the requirements of the MRV regulation, is that compliance and system design issues can be identified and corrected by ship owners and operators before enforcement begins.

During the process, Verifavia says it also reviews company procedures for collecting, transmitting, and transforming voyage, fuel, and cargo data, and performs in-depth analysis on each company's carbon emissions and activity data.

"The company has an effective monitoring plan in place and can generate an emissions report for the tankers in its fleet, enabling it to report its CO2 emissions in accordance with the new rules,"  said Julien Dufour, CEO of Verifavia.

"For some companies the 'gap' may be significant and therefore we advise that this analysis is conducted to ensure compliance, but also peace of mind, before MRV is enforced."

Over a three month period, Verifavia is said to have worked with NEDA Maritime to collect data, perform calculations, complete emissions report templates, making sure that the company can address identified gaps between data already collected and requirements under the MRV regulation.

"Continuous improvement of our processes and procedures for data collection will ensure accurate and effective compliance with MRV regulations," said Panos Deligiannis, Tankers Technical Manager at NEDA Maritime.

"We are now confident that we have the systems, capabilities and understanding to roll this out across our entire fleet."

Verifavia says it has been asked by five companies so far, including NEDA Maritime, to conduct a pre-verification audit in preparation for the enforcement of the MRV regulation.

In November, Ship & Bunker reported that a new Maritime Sustainability Centre would be established by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Greece in order to ensure the compliance of large ships with the new CO2 emissions MRV regulation.