The Japanese government is investigating other marine engine makers in the country after the disclosure that Hitachi Zosen and two of its subsidiaries have falsified emissions testbed data of over 1,300 engines.
The Maritime Bureau of the country’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), said it will also not issue any related certificates to Hitachi or other engine makers until they are fully compliant with regulations
Hitachi Zosen, and its subsidiaries Hitachi Zosen Marine Engines Corp and IMEX, make engines under license for MAN Energy Solutions and WinGD, two of the shipping industry’s largest engine makers.
The company announced it has been asked by the government to examine its emissions data and found deliberate manipulation of the data had been since 1999.
Hitachi is not the first engine maker this year to announce discrepancies with emissions data. In March IHI Corp also made similar admissions, saying emissions data of 4,215 marine engines had been tampered with.
“The situation undermines the trust of users and is extremely regrettable from the perspective of ensuring the environmental and safety performance of ships,” the Japanese ministry said, according to a computer translation.
“The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has instructed the three companies to conduct a detailed investigation into the facts and consider measures to prevent recurrence and to report back to us promptly. We will continue to instruct the three companies and take strict measures to ensure the environmental and safety performance of ships and prevent recurrence.”
It said it will report further after additional investigation into the data manipulation at Hitachi Zosen and will issue more details at the end of August.
MLIT also said it will investigate 19 other marine engine makers in Japan to determine whether they have also been manipulating testbed emissions data, and asked for reports from them by the end of September.
MAN lists IHI Power, JFE Engineering, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Hanshin Diesel Works, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding and Makita as other licensees in Japan.
WinGD lists Mitsui and Japanese Engine Corp and Hitachi Zosen as licensees in the country.
In its initial admission to tampering with emissions data, Hitachi Zosen said the majority of the engines had been certified by Japanese classification society ClassNK.
When approached by TradeWinds, ClassNK said: “According to Hitachi Zosen Marine Engine and IMEX, 950 engines from Hitachi Zosen Marine Engine and 414 engines from IMEX had improper rewriting, and about 60% of these engines had been installed to vessels under ClassNK registry.”
The classification society said it was cooperating with MLIT and where appropriate will be contacting relevant flag states of relevant ships to verify environmental and safety performance.
The emissions tampering scandal in Japan is not limited to just shipping.
Last week, Japanese carmaker Mazda was also asked by the government to investigate its engine testing data and reported it had found evidence of tampering that has led to thousands of cars having mis-declared data.
