Feature: Fuel fiasco tempts fate

If the worst were to happen and a ship suffered a casualty resulting in large-scale pollution and a subsequent inquiry found the cause was engine-failure as a direct result of air pollution laws, who would be blamed?There have already been an alarming number

of engines failing as ships switch from heavy fuel oil to low-sulphur alternatives such as marine gas oil, with one of the most recent involving a large containership in San Francisco Bay as it headed for its berth in the port of Oakland. With a stalled engine, the ship began drifting but was taken under tow and safely moved by four tugs to its destination.
The 2007-built containership, like many other vessels, had been trying to comply with California’s laws on clean air which was extended to ships within 24 miles of the coast requiring them to burn fuel with, in the case of marine diesel, a maximum sulphur content of 0.5% and in the case of marine gas oil (as was the case with the French containership) 1.5%. From next January those limits will be cut to just 0.1%.
The foreseen consequences were a rise in engine-related incidents as switchovers taxed machine and man. There were 15 casualty investigations involving fuel-switching in the first three months of the law coming into effect in Summer 2009 and local pilots say they are currently dealing with such incidents every one-to-three days.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB), the body responsible for the law, has granted exemptions to the low-sulphur diktat. Masters faced with heavy weather or technical problems that endanger the ship, crew, passengers or cargo are permitted to skip the switch, but repeated use of the exemption or its use where the owner should have reasonably foreseen the risk of engine problems will not be tolerated.
In an attempt to get around the problem, some operators also took to re-routing their ships and so minimising the time spent inside the 24-mile cordon sanitaire. But this meant they were no longer using the regulated and, in theory, safer traffic separation scheme (TSS) in the Santa Barbara Channel and so raising the risk of collisions and other incidents.
The alternative route also took the ships through a military testing range and close to a marine sanctuary popular with blue and humpback whales. This is not a long-term option anyway, as from August 2012, an ECA area will enter into force along the US and Canadian coasts where the sulphur limit will be reduced from 3.5% to 1.0%. From 1 January 2015, the sulphur limit within these ECA’s will be further reduced to 0.1%.
California may be renowned for having some of the toughest controls on pollution of any sort in the world (hence the recent scepticism about a proposed new tanker terminal in Los Angeles), but the European Union (EU) is not far behind. From January this year ships when in port have been required to burn fuel with a sulphur content of 0.1%.
Brussels brushed aside ship owners’ protests the new rule would pose safety risks and exacerbate supply problems, arguing they had plenty of time to prepare, but rather graciously allowed an eight-month phasing-in period with member states allowed a degree if interpretation, leaving ships to play a guessing game as they sailed to or between EU ports.
Skuld, the Norwegian P&I Club, recently produced a report on the dilemma facing ship owners. Penalties can vary from state to state, with Trieste in Italy handing out fines of up to EUR 150,000, while in some ports Masters and Chief Engineers, rather than ship owners, have been penalised. Ships have even, apparently, been refused permission to enter some Italian ports for non-compliance.
Ships deemed to be non-compliant also face detention and losing out on charters, with Skuld pointing out “it is almost certain” oil companies, which may have their own problems being compliant, will be reluctant to hire a non-compliant tanker. Other points raised by the P&I club include shipbuilders’ liability for modifications, charter-party complications (with a nod to BIMCO’s Fuel Sulphur Content clause) and insurance concerns.
The report concludes with the observation that “the burden and risk of modifying ships to be compliant with these EU standards rest squarely with ship owners” and that “it is clear that significant operational and legal challenges remain for the shipping industry”. Seafarers’ unions would add their members are caught in the middle – on the one side bureaucrats and officials laying down the law by the letter and, on the other, ship owners and managers asking, begging perhaps, them to try and do the impossible (again).
Local or regional laws on ship-originated pollution are not limited to smokestack exhausts but also and in particular ballast water, but do reveal that the fears ship owners have had about the “patchwork quilt” effect of unilateral legislation are coming true and do not bode well for what may arise from any “climate change” legislation.
After San Francisco suffered from the bunkers spill of another containership a few years ago, the investigations (by the USCG, the National Transportation Safety Board and the ship’s flag-state) the main findings included pilot error while under the influence of undisclosed medication, poor Bridge Resource Management and a new crew most on their first voyage to the port.
Now if, without tempting fate too much, something similar happened because of a fuel-switch, the outcry would be as shrill. The crew would no doubt be arrested, the ship detained and the owner/manager pursued through the courts, with the crowds outside baying for blood.
Ships must continue to sail, owners earn their income and crews stay employed, with all this and the environment at risk from possibly well-meaning laws to protect the health of citizens who will not understand (nor make any real effort to) the realities of shipping that is normally invisible except for the pollution – both that for which it might be held responsible and that which it might reasonably argue it should not be.
Source: BIMCO