Marshall Islands to police IMO infraction case-by-case

Spanish Market: Oil products
03/06/19

The Marshall Islands, the world's second largest ship registry, will adhere to official guidance on how to police non-compliance with the upcoming 0.5pc sulphur cap on marine fuels.

The Marshallese registry said it will consider infraction on a case-by-case basis, in line with guidance from the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which has set a sulphur limit for marine fuels of 0.5pc globally from 1 January, 2020. The IMO has said it will be down to flag states to ensure shipowners comply with the rule, and its guidelines allow flag states' flexibility on what to do in the result of an infringement, including taking no action.

More than 4,500 vessels are registered in the Pacific archipelago, around a quarter of which are tankers.

The Marshall Islands does not intend to have a set list of fines and actions for non-compliance. Actions could include seizure of a vessel or requiring a reapplication for various types of maritime certification.

The Marshallese registry has said fuel oil non-availability report (Fonar), which can be completed when a vessel is unable to obtain compliant fuels, is not a waiver.

The Marshall Islands will be viewing all scrubber fitments to 2015 standards, which were set by the IMO. The IMO came up with the standards mainly for vessels using scrubbers in emission control areas (ECAs), which set the sulphur content of fuels in certain areas as 0.1pc from 1 January 2015.

Any updates to scrubber legislation will not be retrospective and would mean a vessel that already has a scrubber fitted would not be required to update. The updates would only affect scrubbers fitted after the IMO updates legislation. This is likely, and many in the shipping industry say that open-loop scrubbers, which discharge waste water into the sea, could be banned outright at some point.

The Marshall Islands expects enforcement of the sulphur cap to be strong particularly in the northern hemisphere, where flag state signatories are most numerous. The registry also expects countries that have signed up to the Tokyo and Paris climate agreements to be strong on enforcement. Some countries will have a set list of fines for non-compliance, but at present it is hard to tell what level of punishment most flag states will administer.

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