EMEA News
IMO2020: Shipowners Highlight Quality Concerns
Having flagged up quality as an area of concern for the new sulfur ruling three months ago, shipowners have noted little progress on the issue.
Dry bulk shipowners organisation Intercargo has said following its London meeting that tramp shipowners are particularly vulnerable to poor fuel quality.
The message on the importance of having safe and compliant fuel available at the start of 2020 "has been distorted", the organisation said in a statement released Wednesday.
"The successful and orderly implementation of the regulation rests with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Member States and with suppliers (involving oil refineries, bunker suppliers and charterers) who need to secure the worldwide availability of safe compliant fuels - a particular problem for ships in the tramp trades," the statement said.
The shipowner organisation pointed to the recent off-spec incidents as an ill omen for what may lie ahead.
"Policing the quality of the new compliant fuels seems to be a great challenge already, as it has proved extremely difficult to address the very serious recent problems with existing fuels."
The concerns are raised at a time when it seems most likely that by far the majority of the global fleet will opt for low sulfur fuel to meet the IMO-designated 0.5% sulfur cap on bunker fuel.
According to Clarkson Research cited in maritime publication the Motorship, over 25% of the orderbook by tonnage is confirmed with a scrubber, although under 3% of the existing fleet have them installed.
Adoption of liquified natural gas (LNG) as a fuel has been more cautious, representing 11% of the orderbook by capacity and less than 3% of the fleet (excluding 'LNG ready' ships). That leaves, by Clarkson's estimation, some 96% of the global fleet opting for low-sulphur fuel oil.
Ships on tramp trade routes tend to call at smaller, out-of-the-way ports where securing supplies of compliant fuel has already been identified as an issue.
