Industry should double efforts ahead of 2020 sulphur cap

Focusing on the impacts of environmental regulations on the maritime industry, President & CEO of Hyundai Merchant Marine, Mr. C. K. Yoo, noted that the shipping and shipbuilding sector shall thoroughly prepare for various regulations to come, starting with Low Sulfur limitation which will take effect from January 1st, 2020.

In a keynote address at Trans-Pacific Maritime Asia Conference, in Shenzhen, China, Mr. C. K. Yoo pointed out that the Low Sulfur compliance seems to be the most serious upcoming regulation and complexity in this issue comes from the fact that there are many options available on the table and the uncertainties related to these options.

There are three options available to comply with the requirement:

    to use Low Sulfur fuel oil with less than 0.5% sulfur emission

    “…We are now well aware how burdensome financially it will be to expand the use of Low Sulfur Fuel Oil from the limited ECA areas to all over the world at all times. As of today, the prices of LSFO or LSGO are more than 50% higher than that of HFO. Furthermore, it is very difficult to forecast the price of Low sulfur fuel oil in 2020, not to mention its suppliability region wise,” he explained.