New rules affecting shipping often come into effect at the turn of
the year and from 1 January 2018 the major change for ships above 5,000gt will
be the requirement to comply with the EU’s Monitoring, Reporting and
Verification (MRV) regulations.
MRV is the regulator’s response to the accusation that shipping
is not doing enough to reduce its CO2 emissions. Quite clearly putting a lower
limit of 5,000gt on the regulation will exclude huge numbers of ships, but
those that are covered are considered to be responsible for around 90% of CO2
emissions from ships.
Under MRV rules, ships will be required to monitor the CO2
emissions from ships, make an annual report of those emissions to an approved
third party verifier and for the verified reports to be submitted to
appropriate authorities where they will be aggregated. The information gathered
will then be used to determine future efficiency regulation and also very
likely to be used as grounds for including shipping into some market-based
measure that will raise money to supposedly offset the effect of those
emissions.
There are two MRV regimes that will be operating. The first of
these to come into effect is an EU regime with the IMO’s own similar but not
identical regulation coming into effect later in 2018. The EU regime applies
only to ships planning to make calls to ports in the EEA – effectively any EU
member state plus Iceland and Norway. The governing rules are laid out in
Regulation (EU) 2015/757 which is supplemented by Regulation (EU) 2016/2072
(accreditation and appointment of verifiers) and Regulation (EU) 2016/1927
(requirement for monitoring plans).It is important to read all of the regulations together because shipowners need to follow designated pathways to making reports and must have a documented plan in place that will need to be followed. The January 2018 date is in fact the second of two deadlines in the EU regulation as the requirement for an approved plan for the company to be in place was back in August 2017.
EU and EEA shipowners will have been made aware of the
requirements by flag states but for ships registered in other countries the
owners may have been unaware of the exact requirements especially the fact that
the verifier must have been approved by one of the member states of the EEA. The
fact that one of the deadlines has already passed is not a huge obstacle as
under Article 6.2 of the EU rules, the owner will have two months from the date
of any affected ships first port call to put all requirements in place. For any
owner still lagging in implementing the requirements, the 2016/1927 Regulations
which can be downloaded from a number of sources includes a very useful plan
template.
Gathering facts
Although there may be some grace period for ships which do not
yet have a reporting plan in place, it will be important that they at least
understand the requirements so that appropriate records and documentation can
be kept. For each ship this will include fuel consumption and other parameters,
such as distance, time at sea and quantity of cargo carried. The quantity of
cargo carried is included because the EU ETS (Emission Trading System) that the
owners may have to participate in is about the amount of work done by cargo and
distance which is in contrast to the IMO’s simpler variant which just records
distance.
The monitoring plan is required to describe the vessel and its
installed combustion machinery, and provide information in a complete and
transparent manner. What kind of fuel will be used and which of the provided
methods for the determination of fuel oil consumption for monitoring and
reporting CO2 emissions or other relevant information is chosen.
There are four available methods for determining consumption;
Bunker fuel delivery note (BDN) and periodic stocktakes of fuel tanks, Bunker
fuel tank monitoring on board, Flow meters for applicable combustion processes
and finally Direct CO2 emission measurements using calibrated equipment. It is
permissible to use a combination to improve accuracy. Shipowners need to
consider how to measure emissions which may involve purchasing and installing
emission monitoring systems some of which can simultaneously measure and record
other exhaust emissions such as NOx and SOx.
Getting helpIt will be some relief to shipowners to know that assisting them in complying with the EU rules has been prioritised by several organisations especially classification societies, software and hardware producers and more beside. Almost without exception, the class societies that are part of IACS have been approved as verifiers and many of these have also developed their own plan templates that owners can use to build their own specific plans. Software that records voyage data can be useful as can the products offered by engine management and control systems manufacturers.
IMO rules differ
Unlike the EU, which has made no secret of the fact that the
collection of data is intended to bring shipping into an ETS, the IMO’s rules
to gather information on CO2 emissions are at present merely an attempt to
quantify exact figures. What may evolve thereafter will eb a matter for
national delegations to the IMO to decide and that looks to eb a very
contentious debate.
The rules governing IMO data also cover only ships above 5,000gt and they are to be found in chapter 4 of MARPOL Annex VI under Regulation 22A. In addition, new appendices have been developed outlining ‘Information to be submitted to the IMO, including ‘Ship Fuel oil Consumption Database’ (Appendix IX), and ‘Form of Statement of Compliance – Fuel Oil Consumption Reporting’ (Appendix X). These rules come into effect from March 2018 and the first reporting period will be for the full year 2019.
The rules governing IMO data also cover only ships above 5,000gt and they are to be found in chapter 4 of MARPOL Annex VI under Regulation 22A. In addition, new appendices have been developed outlining ‘Information to be submitted to the IMO, including ‘Ship Fuel oil Consumption Database’ (Appendix IX), and ‘Form of Statement of Compliance – Fuel Oil Consumption Reporting’ (Appendix X). These rules come into effect from March 2018 and the first reporting period will be for the full year 2019.
The data that is collected under the IMO regime is reported to
flag states which will aggregate it and submit the data for the f lag to the
IMO for inclusion into an IMO database. The data to be submitted includes the
fuel consumption data (by fuel type and in metric tonnes), as well as distance
travelled and time at sea, from berth to berth.
There are other consequences of the IMO rules that will affect
all shipowners including those subject to the EU regulations. All shipowners
will have to ensure that by 31 December 2018, the Ship Energy Efficiency
Management Plan (SEEMP) onboard each of their vessels has been amended to
include the methodologies that will be used for collecting the required data
and reporting that data to the flag state.
The table below sets out the core components of the two systems
alongside each other for ease of comparison.
Future Developments
The EU intends to use the data gathered as a basis for including
shipping in its ETS from 2023/24 if by 2023 the IMO has not established a means
for immediate reduction in CO2 emissions from the industry.
At MEPC 72 in April 2018, the issue will be high on the agenda but while there is an acceptance of the need for shipping to become more efficient the method of doing this remains the subject of fierce debate.
The IMO has included the issue as one of its strategic developments adopted at the IMO Assembly in December 2017 and Shipping industry bodies have also submitted proposals. The IMO is planning the adoption of a revised strategy in 2023 to include short-, mid-, and long-term further measures, as required, including implementation schedules. However, there is no evident consensus on the ways to proceed as things stand.
At MEPC 72 in April 2018, the issue will be high on the agenda but while there is an acceptance of the need for shipping to become more efficient the method of doing this remains the subject of fierce debate.
The IMO has included the issue as one of its strategic developments adopted at the IMO Assembly in December 2017 and Shipping industry bodies have also submitted proposals. The IMO is planning the adoption of a revised strategy in 2023 to include short-, mid-, and long-term further measures, as required, including implementation schedules. However, there is no evident consensus on the ways to proceed as things stand.
