Port City Backs ECA Regulation Delay

French company Brittany ferries provides links between France and the UK, Spain and Ireland.

Plymouth City Council (PCC) this week voted unanimously to ask the UK government to delay enforcement of new Emissions Control Area (ECA) regulations in an effort to help ferry operator Brittany Ferries, who operates from the city, with the cost of compliance, local media outlet The Herald reports.

"This motion wants the council to unite to put pressure on our Government. This is a European regulation but implemented by the UK. We are asking for our own Government to give a break to Brittany Ferries," said Council Leader Tudor Evans.

While it is the responsibility of national governments to implement EU Directives in their jurisdictions, commentators have noted that, in practice, there is usually little room for national deviation from EU laws.

Sulfur Limits

All vessels operating within the world's ECAs currently must use a marine fuel with a sulfur content not exceeding 1.00 percent by weight, a limit which drops to 0.10 percent on January 1, 2015.

According to the report, complying with the new rules will raise the firm's fuel costs by 40 percent.

Equivalent methods of complaince will be permitted under the new rules, and Brittany Ferries is understood to be planning to install exhaust gas scrubbers on some of its existing vessels and convert others to liquefied natural gas (LNG) by some time in 2016, but this will come after the new rules have come into effect.

As such, PCC says it will ask the UK government to allow Brittany Ferries to avoid the new limits until 2017.

"Any downturn impact on the company could affect the city," said Councillor Ian Bowyer explaining why PCC has stepped in.

Brittany Ferries operates passenger and cargo routes from the UK to France and Spain using the port city of Plymouth as one of its UK bases.

This is not the first call for a delay in the implementation of the new sulfiur regulation, and earlier this year the European Community Shipowners' Associations called for similar action.

In December last year Brittany Ferries announced plans for the world's largest LNG-powered ferry.