19JUL2019 - NEWS - IMO 2020 Practical Guidance from Europe’s Largest Port

The IMO’s mandate requires ships to burn up to 0.5% sulfur bunker fuel from 1 January 2020. High sulfur fuel oil, now allowed up to 35,000 ppm sulfur, will only be permitted if the ship has scrubbing technology onboard to remove the sulfur. Preparations for using lower-sulfur bunkering fuels like very low sulfur fuel oil or marine gasoil are already underway. There are many questions still up in the air as to how the new regulations will play out and what impact they will have on oil prices across the petroleum supply chain. So, we turned to someone in the trenches to get some practical IMO 2020 guidance.Meanwhile, Rotterdam is one of the largest bunkering ports in the world – number one in Europe, in fact. Total volume is around 10 million cubic meters per year. Changes in the sulfur specifications will have a huge impact on bunker fuels at this port and on the refineries and the terminals associated with it. Backers offered some real-world perspectives and a look ahead beyond IMO 2020 in a recent podcast.