09SEP2019 - NEWS - Japan's Cosmo Oil starts building IMO-compliant fuel stocks at Chiba

Cosmo Oil, Japan's third-largest refiner, has started building stocks of very low-sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) that can be supplied to domestic marine fuel markets from October ahead of IMO 2020, its top executive told Reuters.The mandate by the International Maritime Organization requires ships globally to reduce the sulphur content in their bunker fuel to 0.5% from January from the current 3.5%."We still have some spare capacity at our residue desulphurizer so we can produce more low-sulphur fuel oil to supply to the bunker market," Tanaka said.