Taking the Temperature of the 2020 Fuel Sulphur Switch

As shipping moves further toward a future powered by cleaner fuels, the introduction of IMO’s global sulphur cap on 1 January 2020 offers some valuable lessons about how to ensure the safe and reliable operation of main engines. Alongside everything else that an unprecedented period of uncertainty has thrown at shipping, 2020 started with the biggest-ever shakeup of the marine fuels market. A majority of internationally trading ships switched to very low-sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO), with a sulphur content of 0.50% m/m or lower, in compliance with IMO’s MARPOL Annex VI sulphur regulations. The remainder either continued to burn high-sulphur fuel but with exhaust gases funneled through cleaning systems (or ‘scrubbers’) to reduce their sulphur emissions, or adopted other low or no-sulphur fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) or methanol.