As of 1 January 2015, the maximum sulphur content in current ECAs must fall from 1% by weight to 0.1%, Two main areas are affected. They are northwest Europe, where the Baltic, the North Sea and the English Channel are ECAs, and North America. There are two aspects of this development that were widely anticipated and, as the deadline approaches, are becoming a matter of fact. The first is that there would be little justification on the side of the shipping industry to invest in stack gas scrubbers, since only a minority of ships spend a sufficient amount of time in the ECAs. The second is that production of 0.1%-sulphur bunker as heavy fuel oil (HFO) is not feasible from a refining technology standpoint.
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