This follows concern about the switch to low sulphur diesel supplies containing a biofuel element and its possibly detrimental effect on engines.<\/p>\n
There were worries that the Fuel Directive, which, in mandating a switchover to low sulphur fuel, could have seen fuel suppliers providing road diesel with a Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) element of up to 7%.<\/p>\n
Alan Cartwright of the Port of London Authority (PLA) told Maritime Journal that the outcome of discussions, informed by a number of organisations including the IMarEST Small Ships Group, Conidia Bioscience and the PLA has been \u2018sensible\u2019.<\/p>\n
He said that the UK Government\u2019s Department for Transport had invested time and energy securing assurance from fuel distillers and blenders that they will be producing and making available ultra-low sulphur fuel (which will be compliant with the Fuels Directive) which is biodiesel free.<\/p>\n
\u2018Some suppliers have yet to respond to the DfT survey but it looks like most of the UK is geographically covered, although Mid to North Wales and the North West looks a bit sparse, said Mr Cartwright. \u2018This supply likelihood is very good news for the maritime sector.<\/p>\n
There had been further concern that not only inland waters would be subject to the new legislation. MCA Category C waters such as the Solent and many harbours were also in danger of being caught up. However, these will now be defined as \u2018to sea\u2019 as laid out in Merchant Shipping regulations. \u2018The sea and estuaries and arms of the sea directly connected thereto\u2019 will thus escape inclusion, allowing commercial vessels operating in tidal category C and D waters (and to sea) to draw fuel to the same specification as ships’ distillate (BS ISO 8269), which should be free of FAME.<\/p>\n
The Fuel Directive being brought into line with Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Air Pollution) Regulations \u2019is sensible, as they are both really about reduction of air pollution\u2019, said Mr Cartwright.<\/p>\n
The battle may not be completely over, as there is more work to be done to secure a safe position, especially as some in the EU seem keen on mandating the FAME content for its green credentials. But Mr Cartwright added, \u2018The DfT has assured us that they will press for exclusion of the maritime sector’s fuel, as they now recognise the very real risks of gross contamination due to our different uptake, storage and use profile compared to agricultural and other land based uses\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fuel suppliers now seem willing to promise a non-bio element supply following expressions of concern from the UK\u2019s maritime sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-1908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-key-deals"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1910,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908\/revisions\/1910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1908"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=1908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}