Trident Alliance Warns Shipowners Against FONAR Use Where MGO is Available

The IMO publishes all of the FONARs filed to it through its website. Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

Lobbying group the Trident Alliance is keen to remind shipowners they should not attempt to file a fuel oil non-availability report (FONAR) to gain permission to burn high sulfur fuels if 0.10% sulfur marine gasoil is available at their port of choice.

FONARs are submitted by ships to the flag state where they are registered in the event that they are unable to buy compliant fuels and plan to use non-compliant ones instead.

A total of 41 were filed in January, according to the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) records, but the monthly total has dropped off sharply since then.

Ambiguous Wording

An examination of the FONARs filed so far this year shows that, while some make explicit mention of neither 0.50% nor 0.10% sulfur fuels being available, others mention only 0.50% sulfur fuels, or more vaguely refer to 'compliant fuels'.

"If you're coming to a port, and you face non-availability, then you have to take certain steps before you can invoke the FONAR," Jesper Fanø, a member of the Trident Alliance's steering committee and a senior regulatory affairs manager at Maersk, told Ship & Bunker in an interview last month.

"You have to ensure that you have checked and exhausted all other means of obtaining compliant fuel, meaning contacting other fuels suppliers in the same port, and afterwards you have to prove these attempts to obtain compliant fuel."

But those checks should not just be restricted to seeing whether very low sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO) is available, he said.

"It is important to underline that 0.10% sulfur is also a compliant fuel," Fanø said. 

"So if you call into a port and 0.50% is not available, but 0.10% is, then you cannot invoke the FONAR.

"You have to bunker compliant 0.10% sulfur compliant fuel and use that."

MGO with a 0.10% sulfur content is traditionally the most expensive of the mainstream bunker fuels on offer at most ports. At Rotterdam it has traded at a premium to VLSFO of between $11.50/mt and $67/mt so far this year.

It is not yet clear to what extent flag states and port states are following this interpretation and refusing lenience in cases where the FONAR makes no mention of whether MGO was available.

Levelling the Playing Field

The Trident Alliance is a coalition of ship owners and operators formed in 2014 to help ensure "robust and transparent" enforcement of sulfur regulations for shipping.

In the years leading up to 2020 there was concern that non-compliance with the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) rules on sulfur could be widespread, meaning that those companies complying properly would be at a financial disadvantage to their competitors.

Fanø also warned against the temptation to use the FONAR as a get-out-of-jail card too often, saying the authorities may be less inclined to accept them from a company with a habit of using them frequently.

"The next port of call is not obligated to accept the FONAR," he said.

"They are at liberty to assess the measures that have been taken and deem whether or not it's enough.

"Port state control can consult the IMO database and look up whether the shipowner has done this repeatedly -- in which case they can dismiss the FONAR."