Thayil, who is also board of directors at shipping association Bimco, has urged the IMO for an early consideration of the 2018 fuel availability study in order to minimise uncertainties surrounding the strict emissions regulation.
At present, ships are required to burn bunker fuel with a maximum sulphur content of 3.5%. A review is up in 2018 to decide if the sulphur content limit is to be substantially reduced to 0.5% by 2020 or 2025, under IMO’s Marpol Annex VI regulation.
“The shipping community and Bimco support Marpol Annex VI and the requiremetns of ECAs (Emission Control Areas) in a level playing field. We seek active participation from all stakehoders including oil companies, coastal states and governments to achieve our sustainable amibitions,” he told delegates at SIBCON 2014 held in Singapore on Thursday.
While there is no shortage of marine gasoil (MGO) to meet demand from ECAs requiring 0.1% sulphur content fuel from 2015, the shipping industry will require massive investments by the oil producers to produce 0.5% sulphur fuel for the 2020 or 2025 global regulation. The desulphurisation process at the refiners would also create negative environmental impact, Thayil said.
Moreover, there is too little time between 2018 to 2020 to manage retrofits on a potentially large number of ships to burn distillates or to install scrubbers.
If it is business as usual without IMO’s emission control regulations, and with the global fleet consuming around 280m metric tonnes of high-sulphur fuel oil each year, shipping will contribute 5% of global emissions by 2050, Thayil projected.
“Shipping emissions will increase 200% or more by 2050 compared to 2007 level,” he said, assuming there is no emission control efforts by the community.
Ahead of the 2020 or 2025 regulation, ships employing the operational measure Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP) and the technical measure Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) as required by IMO would help the shipping industry avoid climate change cost of $88bn a year and reap fuel savings of $90-130bn a year by 2050, he added.
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