Mediterranean Sea could become a low-sulphur fuel area by 2025

The EU, together with countries around the Mediterranean Sea, committed to further efforts to protect the Mediterranean environment. By 2025, the Mediterranean Sea could become an emissions control area mandating the use of low-sulphur marine fuels.

On 10 December 2021, in Antalya, Turkey, 22 signatory governments agreed to establish a sulphur emission control area (SECA) for shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. The decision came as part of a meeting of the UN Barcelona Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean. The plan is for the proposal to be submitted for adoption to the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MPEC) in June 2022 and apply to the IMO to add the resolution to the next MPEC meeting in October 2022, which would clear the way for the control zone to begin as early as 2025. A broad range of NGOs had long advocated for this action. The ships steaming through the Mediterranean would only use fuels containing a low sulphur content, which is specified as 0.1% sulphur from 1 January 2025, instead of current levels of 0.5% (since 1 January 2020). Although measures have not yet been decided for nitrogen oxides, the Barcelona Convention signatories agreed to discuss the establishment of the NECA zone (to limit NOx emissions) within the next two years.

Source: Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore https://marine-offshore.bureauveritas.com/newsroom/sulphur-emission-cont...