Despite shipping being the greenest form of transport, it felt like the industry was under “environmental siege,” he said. While lifting that siege by stopping the legislation was not practical, Bimco would strive to ensure that the new rules were “workable and affordable” as well as globally applied, Denholm pledged. This effort would form the theme of his two-year presidency.
On the requirement for low sulphur fuels, Denholm called it of “tremendous concern” that the EU was pressing ahead with plans for a 0.5% limit regardless of whether enough distillates were available or not. Barring any breakthrough in scrubber technology or the availability of distillates, Bimco would be pushing for those implementation dates to be deferred, he said.
Similarly, the meeting of new ballast water treatment rules “is going to be all cost and no benefit” for shipowners, the president stated. Although IMO had just agreed a smoother and longer implementation process for its Ballast Water Convention - which could enter into force as soon as 2014, despite the technology required being unproven. At the same time the US has already put in place its own regime, which placed owners at “huge risk of investing in the wrong equipment.” Bimco would use its influence in IMO to achieve a loosening of the timetable for the implementation of BWT (Ballast Water Treatment Systems), to make it workable, he said.
Meanwhile, on the whole issue of carbon emissions, shipping “has done what it can” to reduce its footprint by slow steaming and the development of new fuel-efficient designs, Denholm said. Bimco will be arguing that nothing further is to be gained by setting targets on emissions reduction for shipping and putting in place mechanisms to achieve these targets.
John Denholm, chairman of J&J Denholm and the Anglo Eastern Management Group, succeeds Varun's Yudhishthir Khatau as president of Bimco.
The Paris agm, which continues today and marks the 100th anniversary of Bimco’s Documentation Committee, also elected Philippe Louis-Dreyfus as president-delegate.
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