The world's top maritime body has tentatively agreed new sulphur limits for ship fuels that will slash air pollutants, but cost the oil and ship industry.
At a major U.N. International Maritime Organization meeting in London this week countries gathered to thrash out how best to reduce harmful ship pollutants, like sulphur dioxide, and tackle climate changing gases. The industry source who is involved in the negotiations said countries party to the IMO had provisionally agreed on sulphur limits in ship fuels, a bugbear of the industry and a critical milestone, late last night. The IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee will agree the final figures and timetable on Friday. Negotiations on tackling climate changing CO2 gases emitted from ships were still continuing, he said. The world's 50,000 ocean-going vessels, which carry more than 90 percent of the world's traded goods by volume, currently mostly burn fuel oil rich in sulphur. This will be a massive shakeup for the refining industry, they (oil industry) tell us they will be extremely challenged to meet these figures," said Simon Bennett, secretary at the International Chamber of Shipping commenting of the figures. "It has been reported that this will have far wider implications for the availability and price of diesel for road transport," Bennett said, emphasizing that cleaner distillate fuels would increasingly make up a substantial part of the fuel mix in the future. Bennett, who welcomed the overall initiative on pollutants, said fuels currently represent 50 percent of operating costs for container ships, for example, which carry manufactured goods.
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