The year that passed was not without fun fare in the maritime industry. We still see series of major incidents as well as accidents and of course lots of lesson learned.

The new year of 2019 was not spared as well as there was an incident regarding a Car carrier which gone ablaze while underway and did have some crew casualty.

Lots of Marpol amendments will be implemented especially on the Annex VI regulation to curb marine pollution. The Baltic Sea and the North Sea ECAs, currently ECAs for SOx, will be extended to also cover NOx.

As of 1 January 2019, all the four ECAs under MARPOL will cover both SOx and NOx. This implies that engines with a power output of more than 130 kW to be installed on vessels constructed on or after 1 January 2021, must be Tier III certified if they are operated inside the Baltic Sea and the North Sea ECAs.

The same will apply for non-identical replacement engines or additional engines installed on existing ships on or after 1 January 2021.

In addition, there are some additional requirement for bunker regarding the BDN at the start of the year – 01 Jan 2019. Not to mention the IMO’s Data Collection System which will take effect come 1st Jan. 2019.

Even the powerhouse China entered the race earlier than expected- making the fuel oil Sulphur content of 0.50% a requirement on 1st Jan. 2019 when vessel enters Chinese coastal waters.

The shipping industry’s biggest challenge at the moment is the upcoming implementation of 0.50% Sulphur cap which will enter into force in 2020. Reason is that there’s NOT much Sulphur rated fuel oil of 0.50% m/m in the market at present.

It seems that installation of the exhaust gas cleaning system (Sox scrubber) is the most practical recommendation to comply with this requirement.

There’s a lot of debate going on at the IMO regarding this matter. Hope whatever the outcome is, this should be a win-win situation both for the industry and the stakeholder as well.

Happy and safe sailing 2019!