06NOV2019 - NEWS - Shippers in India assured of low-sulphur fuel supply, relaxed regulations

The Indian shipping community, which is preparing for the global ban on carrying and burning of fuels with sulphur content higher than 0.5 per cent in ships, received two assurances on Tuesday in Chennai.

One is related to a more relaxed enforcement regime in the first few months of next year, owing to the uncertainty over the level of preparedness of the industry in dealing with the change, and the other from Indian oil companies that they are ready to supply the required low sulphur fuel.

With the mandate scheduled to kick in on January 1, 2020, Captain SIAK Azad, Deputy Nautical Advisor at the Mercantile Marine Department, said that the regulator’s priority in the first few months will be ease of doing business. “Trust and common sense will be applied and we won’t go just by the letter of the law,” he addressed the gathering of nearly 100 people at the regional seminar on ‘IMO Sulphur Cap 2020 – Implementation and its Impact in Indian Waters’, conducted in Chennai.