Maritime Air Pollution Conference Focuses on IMO 2020

At Riviera’s Maritime Air Pollution Conference, Americas, scheduled for March 5-6 in Miami, panelists and participants will assess the effects of the IMO 2020 sulfur cap after its first three months. 

Keynote speaker Nicholas Makar, SVP for regulatory affairs at International Registries, Inc. (IRI), will address head-on whether implementation has gone according to plan. He will reflect on how consistently the new regulation has been policed, whether there is evidence of cheating and discuss the lessons learned to date. 

Scrubbers will also be on the agenda. It’s been the best and worst of times for scrubber manufacturers: There has been a spate of ordering at the same time that a heated and very public debate around their environmental credentials plays out in certain sections of the media. Expect clear analysis based on science and operational experience from a mix of regulators, owner/operators and suppliers recruited to the two-day program.

Scrubbers are of course one way to allow tankers to continue to burn marine fuel with a higher sulfur content and achieve lower sulfur emissions. One other alternative is the use of LNG as a marine fuel. While cost prohibits LNG as a retrofit option for most tankers, it can make financial sense on a newbuilding, when the extra cost - said to be $15 million on a VLCC - is financed as a single package. The event will dissect the economics and practicalities not only of this fuel but LPG, methanol and biofuels.

Non-hydrocarbon-based solutions will also be analyzed, as well as the potential savings achievable through slow steaming and its potential to deliver on emissions reductions.

Whatever an owner/operator’s strategy, it is clear that the economic and regulatory pressures to decarbonize have been ratcheted up by IMO 2020 legislation, and these pressures will only increase. There is now a timeline for industry wide decarbonization, and at the Miami conference delegates will get clear direction on compliance and implementation - plus how different approaches to fuel efficiency are being incentivized in support of IMO’s ambitious 2050 greenhouse gas emission goals.

This announcement is sponsored by Riviera Maritime Media. Complete details of Maritime Air Pollution Conference, Americas are available at www.maritimeairpollution.com or by emailing [email protected].