EMEA News
ExxonMobil: 0.50% Global Sulfur Cap Will Mean a Step Change in the Fuels Needed for Shipping
ExxonMobil last week at Nor-Shipping 2015 said that an upcoming 0.50 percent global sulfur cap for marine fuel will mean a step change for bunkers and refining, Seatrade Global reports.
"There is a lot of anxiety in the shipping and refining industries," Eddy H. Van Bouwel, policy planning senior advisor, ExxonMobil, said at the seminar "Future of Marine Fuels by 2020/25."
"What we're looking at is a step change in the fuels needed for shipping. This means that refineries all over the world will need to look at what they will do.
"If refiners do want to invest in conversion capacity – cokers, hydro-cracking – they pretty much have to do it now. These units will take four or five years."
Van Bouwel also warned that the drive for lower sulfur bunkers will have its own environmental consequences.
"What we do know is that all that extra sulfur refining will require more energy usage and more CO2 emissions. None of this happens for free."
Earlier this year oil and bunker industry veteran Dr Rudy Kassinger said that the refining industry will have to invest at least $100 billion to convert all the residual fuel no longer being used by the marine industry into clean products.
