According to WMN, Indonesia has decided that the vessels that hoist the Indonesian flag would meet the IMO sulfur limit 2020, after the country previously reported that it needed more time to comply. Indonesia is then the first country to confirm that it will implement the limit of maritime sulfur emissions in time (2020).
That is, the country’s Ministry of Transportation confirmed that the rule would apply to “all vessels with Indonesian flag from January 1, 2020, both for domestic and foreign shipments,” according to Reuters.
The latest development comes less than a month after Indonesia said it would not switch to low sulfur fuel as of January 1, 2020, due to the abundant supplies of 3.5% sulfur fuel in your energy company Pertamina.
The previous plan was to allow Indonesian-flagged vessels to continue burning marine fuels with a maximum sulfur content of 3.5% in the territorial waters of the country after 2020, without having to use scrubbers, until stocks run out.
According to IMO regulation, established for implementation as of January 2020, ships must use fuel with a maximum sulfur content of 0.5%, below the current 3.5%, unless equipped with scrubbers
An important advance for an archipelago country where the transport of cargo and people depends mainly on maritime mode. In Latin America there is still no clarity about the implementation of the IMO regulation, however, underdevelopment, prominence of fuels with a high sulfur content and a too high impact on Opex can delay implementation.
