New emissions regulations will raise costs and create new problems

The Ship Board Emissions Regulations promulgated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO)** not only increase costs for shipowners, but also create new problems.

The new regulations are a nightmare for the logistics industry. It is very difficult for shipowners to find the right ratio of fuel and lubricants for their ships to operate.

Buadhi Halim, secretary general of The Indonesian Shipowners Association (INSA), told The Container Shipping Manager magazine: "Emissions control affects our costs; the biggest problem is finding the right fuel. If you use the wrong fuel, the engine of the ship will be damaged."

Mr Halim is most concerned about the lack of suitable fuel substitutes on the market; Apart from the serious impact on shipping operations, the cost of warehousing vessels in Indonesia is also very large.

The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), established by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), provides that until 31 December 2014, sulphur emissions in sulphur Emission Control Areas (SECAs) are capped at 1% of the weight of fuel (weightage). Starting January 1, 2015, the cap on sulphur emissions must be reduced to 0.1%.

The lack of suitable fuels on the market has caused confusion among shipping companies in their search for low-sulfur fuels.

While diesel engines on ships can generally be scrubbed, Halim said it would only work on smaller vessels.

"The remnants of large ships may be dumped into the sea after their engines are cleaned." Halim explains that while this solves one problem, it creates another.

According to a fuel trader in Singapore, the problem is that the scrubbing technology uses seawater. "It's all about the use of seawater." He explained the cycle of scrubbing technology: "Scrubbing removes sulfur with seawater." "Even simple scrubbing techniques are not cheap," he noted.

In an interview with Professional Mariner magazine, Jeffrey W Aldrich, director lecturer at the Institute of Shipping Mechanics in Orlando, Florida, pointed out that it would be more difficult to implement the new standards at foreign ports.