The sulfur cap will be enforced on January 1, 2020, meaning that ships will be banned from burning any marine fuel with a sulfur content above 0.5 pct.
As explained, such chaos would have serious consequences for the movement of the world’s energy, raw materials and manufactured products, with about 90 percent of global trade being carried by sea.
This was the principal conclusion of the Annual General Meeting of ICS’s member national shipowner associations which met in Hong Kong last week.
Speaking from Hong Kong, Esben Poulsson, ICS Chairman, said: “The shipping industry fully supports the IMO global sulphur cap and the positive environmental benefits it will bring, and is ready to accept the significant increase in fuel costs that will result. But unless a number of serious issues are satisfactorily addressed by governments within the next few months, the smooth flow of maritime trade could be dangerously impeded.”
“It is still far from certain that sufficient quantities of compliant fuels will be available in every port worldwide by 1 January 2020. And in the absence of global standards for many of the new blended fuels that oil refiners have promised, there are some potentially serious safety issues due to the use of incompatible bunkers,” Poulsson added.
“Governments, oil refiners and charterers of ships responsible for meeting the cost of bunkers all need to understand that ships will need to start purchasing compliant fuels several months in advance of 1 January 2020. But at the moment no one knows what types of fuel will be available or at what price, specification or in what quantity. Unless everyone gets to grips with this quickly we could be faced with an unholy mess with ships and cargo being stuck in port,” he warned.
ICS emphasizes that governments will need to make significant progress on these issues at a critical IMO meeting in July about the impending global sulfur cap, to which ICS – in cooperation with other international industry associations – will be making a number of detailed technical submissions to assist successful implementation.
國際海運組織（ICS）擔心“混亂”，除非國際海事組織（IMO）緊急解決有關成功實施0.5％硫磺上限的問題。
硫上限將於2020年1月1日施行，這意味著船舶將被禁止燃燒硫含量超過0.5％的任何船用燃料。
正如所解釋的那樣，這種混亂將會對世界能源，原材料和製造產品的流動產生嚴重影響，全球約90％的貿易是通過海運進行的。
這是上週在香港召開會議的ICS成員國船東協會年度大會的主要結論。
來自香港，Esben Poulsson , ICS主席說：“航運業完全支持IMO全球硫帽和積極的環境效益會帶來，並準備接受燃料成本，這將導致該顯著上升。但是，除非在未來幾個月內政府滿意地解決一些嚴重問題，否則海上貿易的順暢流通可能受到嚴重阻礙。“
“到2020年1月1日，全世界每個港口都將提供足夠數量的合規燃料，這還遠遠沒有確定。而且，由於煉油商承諾的許多新混合燃料沒有全球標準，因此存在一些潛在的嚴重問題由於使用不相容的燃料而導致的安全問題，“ Poulsson補充說。
“政府，煉油廠和負責滿足燃料成本的船舶租船人都需要明白，船隻需要在2020年1月1日之前幾個月開始購買合規燃料。但目前還沒有人知道哪種燃料將會可用或以什麼價格，規格或數量。除非每個人都快速掌握這一點，否則我們可能會面臨船隻和貨物卡在港口的不好的混亂，“他警告說。
ICS強調，在今年7月舉行的IMO重要會議上，各國政府將需要在這些問題上取得重大進展，即關於即將實行的全球硫磺上限，ICS將與其他國際行業協會合作，提交一系列詳細的技術文件去幫助成功實施。
Image Courtesy: IContainers / Imformation Source: World Maritime News Staff
