Shipping companies said that they need more time to comply with the European Sulphur Directive, which requires that from January 2015, ships sailing in the Sulphur Emission Control Areas (SECAs) covering the Baltic Sea, North Sea and Channel must use fuels with a sulphur content of 0.1% or lower – or, alternatively, install scrubbers.
In Britain, shipping lines have warned that shifting to low-sulphur fuel will lead to a 30% rise in costs for passengers and freight, the loss of 2,000 jobs, £300m in additional costs to shipping operators, and the arrival of thousands more lorries on Britain’s roads, generating 12m tonnes of additional CO2 emissions.
It may take two years to fit the necessary technology to all their ships, they say, urging the British government to insist that the EU ‘allow pragmatic transitional arrangements’.