- Shipping companies have spent more than $12bn fitting thousands of scrubbers on vessels.
- Preliminary risk assessment on the PAH emissions from scrubbers was not possible considering the available information.
- The IMO is due to discuss future regulation of scrubbers at a meeting next week.
- The IMO’s sub-committee PPR will this week finalize details of the ban from 1 March on the carriage of HFO on ships not fitted with scrubbers.
- The premium for LSFO has ranged from $200-$300 a ton.
- Installing scrubbers has been accepted by the IMO flag states as an alternative means of meeting the new sulphur limit.
According to an article published in The Guardian and The Loadstar, shipping companies have spent more than $12bn fitting thousands of scrubbers on vessels.
Preliminary risk assessment
Some of the pollutants deemed most concerning by experts that are pumped into the sea by scrubbers are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which have been linked to skin, lung, bladder, liver and stomach cancers.
In its report, the IMO says, “carrying out a preliminary risk assessment [on the PAH emissions from scrubbers] was not possible considering the available information” and warns that “secondary poisoning (via consumption of seafood) had been mentioned as a likely exposure route for humans”.
Critics say IMO member states should have conducted thorough risk assessments before deciding to allow the use of scrubbers under the new legislation.
Need for analysis on consequences
Lucy Gilliam, a campaigner for the Brussels-based NGO Transport & Environment, says the IMO should stop the use of scrubbers until it can answer key questions about how discharges may affect health.
She said, “Ships should not be allowed to use scrubbers if the IMO has no idea what the consequences will be for human health and food chain contamination. The surge in scrubber use means that increasing amounts of PAHs will accumulate in sediment over time, and no one knows what the impact on human health will be. It is going to have an impact on the food chain and, as things stand, we have no reliable information about when safe threshold limits will be breached.”
PAHs in the food chain
Christopher Elliott, a professor at the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast, believes the effect of bioaccumulation of PAHs in the food chain is a worrying issue.
“Any increase in PAHs at the bottom of the food chain can have a negative impact on human health over the long term, damaging immune systems and potentially increasing susceptibility to cancer,” he said.
Shipping companies have repeatedly said that they have commissioned rigorous studies to test pollutants discharged by scrubbers.
Earlier this year a study commissioned by Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) Europe, the world’s largest cruise industry trade association, concluded that “exhaust gas cleaning systems have a limited impact on water quality”.
Safe and effectiveness of scrubbers
In March last year Carnival, the world’s biggest cruise company, published a study that described scrubbers as “a safe and effective” way of complying with the recently implemented regulations for cleaner air emissions.
The Clean Shipping Alliance, a lobby group for companies that have invested in exhaust gas cleaning technology, says it believes that sufficient research has been conducted and discharges from the devices are safe for marine ecosystems.
“There is well-documented evidence relating to the composition of scrubber wash water,” a spokesperson said.
However, in the IMO’s new internal report it criticizes the existing body of research that been published based on analysis of chemical discharge from the devices, saying that some of the existing studies cannot be trusted.
It said, “In a number of reports, no basic information was provided either on the sampling techniques or on the quality assurance and control of the analytical methods used. Lack of all this information put a great uncertainty on a number of presented results and the quality of the provided data could not be fully judged and trusted.”
The veracity of the study
Gilliam says many of the existing studies looking at chemical discharges from scrubbers have been done by entities that benefit financially from the use of them.
“In some cases, they are commissioning studies by independent groups, but the samples are being collected by their own staff,” she said.
She further added, “How do we know exactly where they are taking the sample from, at what time, at what engine load? We don’t have those answers. It can’t be regarded as rigorous, independent, peer-reviewed research. We don’t know if this will be a health crisis in 20 or 30 years, because proper research just hasn’t been done.”
A spokeswoman for CLIA said: “Cruise lines are committed to environmental stewardship and have invested more than £16bn in ships with new technologies and cleaner fuels to reduce air emissions and achieve greater energy efficiencies. Exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS), which are designed to remove 98% of sulphur and well over 50% of particulate matter from the exhaust, have been proven safe for maritime environments. Publicly available studies on the long-term impact of discharges from exhaust gas cleaning systems have found a minimal environmental impact on water and sediment quality when benchmarked against new European environmental quality standards entering into force in 2021.”
Sediment contamination and dredging
In October, the British Ports Association warned that the use of scrubbers by shipping companies could render some UK ports unusable by contaminating sediment and increasing the cost of dredging.
The IMO is due to discuss future regulation of scrubbers at a meeting starting on Monday.
The IMO’s sub-committee on pollution prevention and response (PPR) will this week finalize details of the ban from 1 March on the carriage of HFO (heavy fuel oil) on ships not fitted with scrubbers.
The agenda for the London meeting also includes scope for further work on revising the guidelines for the use of the exhaust gas cleaning system alternative to LSFO (low-sulphur fuel oil) in the light of the experience gained post IMO 2020.
The complementary MARPOL amendment to the 0.5% sulphur cap on ships’ fuel, in force since 1 January, will make it illegal after 29 February for vessels that do not have scrubber systems installed to have HFO on board in fuel tanks.
A smooth transition
Industry consensus is that IMO 2020 caused very little disruption and that possible shortages of the ‘new normal’ compliant LSFO (low-sulphur fuel oil), or even HFO for scrubber-fitted vessels, have been overcome, at least at the main bunker hubs.
However, it remains to be seen how compliant with the new rules the shipping industry turns out to have been, given that much of the responsibility for policing the IMO regulations come under the auspices of its member states.
Indeed, the Trident Alliance, an industry group set up to ensure a level playing field on the enforcement of the sulphur cap, says it is “still early days” in assessing the success of IMO 2020. Talking to Ship & Bunker last week, chair of the group Roger Strevens said the data needed would only be available later in the year.
By then, he said, a comparison could be made on the amount of HFO that had been purchased against the known base requirement for scrubber-fitted vessels.
“That will be a very interesting comparison,” said Mr. Strevens.
Alternate means of meeting IMO recommendation
Installing scrubbers has been accepted by the IMO flag states as an alternative means of meeting the new sulphur limit. It resulted in all sectors of the maritime industry investing billions of dollars in retrofitting scrubber systems on the existing tonnage and specifying installation on newbuilds.
Since the 0.5% sulphur cap became law, shipping lines that invested in scrubbers have saved millions of dollars in the cost of bunker fuel, as the premium for LSFO has ranged from $200-$300 a ton.
However, the process of the most popular open-loop scrubber systems, which use seawater to separate the sulphur content, which is then stored onboard for later discharge at port before the ‘wash water’ is discharged back into the sea, has attracted negative press, resulting in the use of open-loop scrubbers being banned in the jurisdictions of more than 80 ports around the world.
A uniform mode of adoption
The sub-committee is tasked with continuing its work on revising the 2015 guidelines for scrubbers – aimed at “enhancing the uniform application” of the guidance.
To assist its work, the sub-committee will have a report submitted by the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection, containing its conclusions on the environmental effects of discharged wash water from scrubbers.
The report, leaked to The Guardian newspaper, apparently warns that toxins remaining in the wash water could harm the food chain.
A pro-scrubber lobby group of ship operators, the Clean Shipping Alliance, has constantly defended the use of exhaust gas cleaning systems as a “safe and effective means of complying with IMO 2020”, citing supporting data from six independent studies.
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Source: TheGuardian & TheLoadstar
