News

As the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down, our team is ready to work. We have been of great support to our clients, colleagues and business partners during this crisis. Albion Marine has successfully completed 3D Scan and started designing scope for BWTS retrofit for a vessel belonging to one of the leading shipping companies in Qatar.

A number of MOUs on port state control (PSC) carried out a joint concentrated inspection campaign (CIC) in 2019 focusing on readiness of ship and crew in an emergency. Gard’s alert of 29 July 2019  provides background information on the campaign as well as a copy of the tailored questionnaire used by attending PSC officers. Operators and masters are advised to take note of the below PSC CIC results and make sure their ships’ muster lists are up to date and meet the requirements of SOLAS Reg.III/8 and Reg.III/37 by providing sufficiently detailed instructions for crews to respond effectively in a real emergency. On ships with significant numbers of non-English speaking crew members, the muster list should also include translations into the appropriate language or languages. Furthermore, masters should bear in mind that there is no substitute for onboard training and drills - everybody onboard must be familiar with the procedures to be followed, their duties and equipment to be used in an emergency. More information: Gard

The next key regulatory milestone is the 2030 regulations where a reduction of 40% of carbon emissions is the current objective. It is widely expected that this threshold will be increased. To date, in the first quarter of 2020, the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) reported that most ships calling at the ports of Singapore have complied with the regulation. It was further reported that based on the pre-arrival notification submitted to MPA, 96% of the ships calling at Singapore used compliant fuel. This excludes ships installed with open loop scrubbers that switch to using compliant fuel upon arriving at Singapore as the use of open loop scrubbers is prohibited in the port of Singapore. In addition, DNV GL reported about 4,000 ships being fitted with scrubbers and more were scheduled to do so during the year due to the price difference between heavy fuel oil (HFO) and low sulphur fuel oil (LSFO). This spread has since reduced to significantly below USD $100 per metric tonne. More information: Safety 4 Sea

There is less than six months to go before a major change in emissions regulations has a considerable impact on tug and workboat design, construction and operation. From January 2021, IMO Tier III regulations for commercial vessels with diesel engines will come into force. This imposes rules on the emissions from diesel engines on vessels with a total power of more than 130 kW, and with their keel laying date after 1 January 2021. Vessels built after this date will need cleaner diesel engines and after treatment systems to minimise nitrogen, sulphur oxide and particulate matter emissions. This could lead to a rush to order new tugs and workboats before that date if owners want to miss this restricting ruling. It is already in the minds of some tug and workboat builders as they produce vessels that can be retrofitted with emissions abatement technology. Read more at Riviera News