This week we have seen two sides of the Emissions Control Area debate. On Monday the 23rd of April “The Motorship” reported that Wilh Wilhelmsen has placed an order with Wärtsillä Hamworthy to fit a multi-stream sea water scrubbing system to its 28,000kW, 38,486dwt Mark IV ro-ro vessel ‘Tamesis’. On Wednesday the 25th of April, Sustainable Shipping included a report that European Shortsea operators are continuing their campaign to delay the implementation of the Baltic and North Sea ECA reduction to 0.1%, which is planned for 2015.
The Sustainable Shipping article reports that German Ferry operator TT-Line claims that the implementation of the 0.1% limit will increase its fuel costs by “80%” and that TT-Line and German shortsea shipping promotion agency SPC are gathering support amongst the Baltic and North Sea littoral states for efforts to lobby IMO and the EC for a moratorium. TT-Line official Hanns Heinrich Conzen suggests that sea water scrubbing systems are not yet mature enough for market and is quoted as saying that "There is no system available for our ships in the market today," TT-Line are however reported to be undertaking trials of sea water scrubbers in 2013 or 2014.
The question is why are owners not engaging in trial installations now? We at Oceanox are working with our development partners to give confidence in system performance and I am sure other manufacturers are equally enthusiastic about working with ship operators to assure them of the viability of the technology.
We have commented before on the uncomfortable position taken by the ship operating community, to lobby hard for delays in implementation, which in itself actually hinders the evolution of the technical abatement solutions. The 0.1% limit is coming and it is within the power of the ship owning and operating community to empower and accelerate the development of sulphur abatement and other environmental technologies which will ultimately benefit not only the environment but also the ship operators themselves.