Shipping set for tough new sulphur rules

Neville Smith - Friday 4 April 2008

Proposals to reduce the global sulphur cap to 3.5% in 2012 and to 0.5% in 2020. Proposals to reduce the global sulphur cap to 3.5% in 2012 and to 0.5% in 2020.

THE Marine Environment Protection Committee has approved a revision to Marpol Annex VI that will impose strict limits on the content of sulphur in marine fuel if as expected, they are adopted by the next session of the committee in October 2008.

The Clean Air Working Group stunned the committee by agreeing on schedule a two-step approach which recommends a reduction in the global sulphur cap to 3.5% in 2012 and to 0.5% in 2020.

In Sulphur Emission Control Areas, the maximum sulphur content will fall to 1% in 2010 and to 0.1% from 2015.

To the astonishment of many group participants, the recommendations were reached by unanimous agreement, with no square brackets indicating elements still to be decided.

Presenting the findings, working group chairman Bryan Wood-Thomas noted the compromises made by all parties to reach the agreement and implied that the political accommodations within it were still fragile.

“Because of the compromises made, alteration of this agreement [through interventions or opposition in plenary] could lead to its unravelling.” But he said the lack of square brackets should be interpreted as meaning that further debate was unnecessary.

The report was approved and forwarded with no reservations or interventions in plenary. A wave of applause swept the Horticultural Hall as the last action point was approved.

Mr Wood-Thomas said the revised sulphur standards represented “a dramatic step forward” and “demonstrates that IMO members do have the political will to deliver a meaningful response to air quality issues”.

Despite being a goal-based standard, the rules, if agreed and adopted will usher in an era of large scale consumption of distillate fuel by the majority of merchant ships in little more than a decade.

Exhaust gas cleaning systems are permitted as an alternative means of compliance but the micro-Seca concept promoted by BIMCO at the BLG sub-committee in February has been dropped.

The new rules will be subject to a review of fuel availability in 2018 with the option to delay the 0.50% sulphur global cap by another five years. A fuel quality standard will not be included in Annex VI but a request has been made to the International Standards Organization to revise its ISO 8217 standard.

Mr Wood-Thomas said the working group recognised uncertainty in the fuel market as to the likely availability of distillate but insisted the standards were not designed to be the lowest common denominator but rather “an advanced treatment that will significantly reduce air emissions”.

The lowering of the global sulphur cap in two stages from the current 4.5% is a reflection of the need to bring more distillate on stream and allow time for adjustment. Friends of the Earth’s Eelco Leemans said the NGO was in general pleased with the agreement since in the longer term, SOx pollution would be dramatically cut.

BIMCO’s Niels-Bjorn Mortensen again said that the micro-Seca concept might yet be revived as developing countries sought to bring down permitted sulphur levels within territorial waters.

The Working group recommended limited major changes to the NOx technical code except that Tier 1 NOx reductions should apply to existing engines where a retrofit kit was available. Clean Air Taskforce senior counsel David Marshall welcomed the sulphur rules said he would have preferred tougher rules on NOx emissions. “There is going to be an awful lot of NOx pollution for many years to come,” he said.

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