China’s Ministry of Transport has issued a draft plan for measures to deal with the 2020 IMO sulphur cap, five months before the implementation of the regulation.
Under the plan, from January 1 2020, the ministry will request international ships to use fuel oil with no more than 0.5% sulphur content for sailing in Chinese controlled waters and use fuel oil with no more than 0.1% sulphur content when sailing on China’s inland rivers and Hainan waters.
An open-loop scrubber is a device that removes sulphur from the exhaust that comes through a ship’s smokestack but the water used in the removal process, known as wash water, is then discharged from the vessel. Closed-loop systems keep most of the wash water onboard the ship.
The ban follows a restriction effective in Jan 2019 on discharges from open-loop scrubbers in key emission control regions, including the main channel of the Yangtze River, the Xijiang River, the Bohai sea region and ports along the coastline as well as Hainan waters.
Source: Reuters.com
