EMEA News
Low-Sulfur Rules to Cost Maersk $200M Per Year
The container businesses of A.P. Møller-Maersk (Maersk) will spend an extra $200 million a year to adapt to the new sulfur limits in European Emissions Control Areas (ECAs), industry news site ShippingWatch reports.
The three container subsidiaries of the shipping giant, Maersk Line, Seago Line, and Safmarine, will have to buy an extra 650,000 metric tonnes (mt) of low-sulfur fuel at an expected price of $300 per metric tonne (pmt), the company's head of sustainability, Jacob Sterling, said.
"We expect to change our bunker surcharge, so that the additional cost for low sulphur fuel is incorporated into cargo transported in the affected regions where the sulphur regulations are set to come into force," Sterling said.
"We expect to say more about the level of the bunker surcharge later in 2014, but the final levels will depend on the actual price difference once the new regulations come into effect."
Carriers anticipate paying prices for marine gas oil (MGO) with 0.10 percent sulfur that are about 50 percent higher than the fuel they use now.
Drewry Supply Chain Advisors warned earlier this month that carriers may have to add bunker adjustment factor (BAF) surcharges of $100 to $120 per twenty-foot equivalent unit because of the ECA rules.
