The IMO’s attempt to come up with new performance standards and guidelines for exhaust gas cleaning systems — also known as scrubbers — has been delayed for another year.
The IMO had hoped to come up with the new rules at last week’s Pollution, Prevention and Response 6 (PPR 6) meeting and conclude its work on the matter this year ahead of the IMO 2020 global limit on the sulphur content of fuel.
The current set of guidelines were decided in 2015 but, due to a heavy schedule at the meeting and time constraints, the PPR 6 meeting was unable to come up with the new rules.
The new guidelines are intended to cover areas such as discharge water measurement standards, the frequency of discharge water testing and the establishment of a data performance monitoring system.
Instead, the IMO will not be able to take a decision on the performance standards until the PPR 7 gathering this time next year.
However, the latest meeting did agree that the new performance standards will not apply to those vessels that have scrubbers installed before the new guidelines are enforced.
No breakthrough on breakdowns
The meeting was also unable to decide on rules for policy covering the mechanical breakdown of scrubbers or emissions monitoring equipment after IMO 2020 enters into force.
It is likely to be up to individual port state control regions on how to handle ships fitted with scrubbers that break down and are unable to remove sulphur to the required standard after the 1 January 2020 deadline.
The options are to detain the vessel in port until the scrubber is repaired, force the ship to burn compliant fuel or allow it to continue sailing to burn non-compliant fuel until the breakdown is repaired.
As earlier reported by Trade-Winds, the IMO PPR 6 meeting did request that more studies be carried out into the environmental impact of the disposal of untreated scrubber discharge water into the sea.
Studies undertaken so far have reached contrasting conclusions.
Preliminary findings from the European Union and Germany suggest there is evidence to show untreated scrubber waste water could damage the environment.
But another by the Clean Shipping Alliance 2020 into discharge water from Carnival Corp’s fleet of cruiseships determined that it was within safe standards. Similarly, a Japanese study into the environmental impact of discharge water concluded that it was safe.
