With the IMO 2020 sulphur cap now in force as of 1 January 2020, the shipping industry faces a new set of issues.

The carriage ban of non-compliant fuel oil is on the horizon; from 1 March 2020, ships not fitted with scrubbers will not be permitted to carry fuel over the 0.50% m/m limit.

Members with ships without scrubbers and having HSFO remaining onboard are faced with a question of how to dispose of it before this date.

Our previous update discussed issues related to the de-bunkering of non-compliant fuel. However, the cost of this operation and potential loss of value of HSFO has triggered queries from some of the club’s members as to whether onboard blending of the non-compliant fuel is permitted to achieve compliance with the regulation.

For such situations, the club would like to direct members to BIMCO’s interpretation on regulatory aspects, and suggest to refer to the ship’s Flag State for issuance of an equivalence in accordance with regulation 4.1 of MARPOL Annex VI.

For further details on the subject, members are recommended to refer to BIMCO’s website.

There could also be compatibility issues when blending fuels on board, details of which were included in the club’s article published in October 2019.
Source: The Standard Club