10 ships caught using banned fuel in ports
Print Edition
THE city’s maritime authority has caught 10 ships using fuel with a high sulfur content while berthing at local ports, according to officials.
Over 100 ships have been randomly checked since the city government launched a new scheme to cut ship-borne pollution on April 1, the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration said yesterday.
Ship emissions account for about 10 percent of Shanghai’s PM2.5 pollution. The burning of fuel can produce sulfur dioxide, oxynitride, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, according to the city’s transport commission.
The scheme, which aims to reduce the PM2.5 pollution in Shanghai and its neighboring cities by 10 percent, requires that vessels berthing at major docks, including Shanghai’s nearby Ningbo-Zhoushan, Nantong and Suzhou, use fuel with a lower sulfur content.
The authority tested the fuel of 108 ships at the border of Shanghai and neighboring Jiangsu Province in April and May. Thirty-seven were found to be polluting the air along the emission-controlled river sections and 10 failed to use low-sulfur oil while berthing at local ports, the administration said.
Inspectors selected several old-looking ships out of every 50, said Huang Kaifeng, deputy director with the maritime administration of Baoshan, home of the city’s major docks.
The ships failed to meet the new standard and were told to either change to low-sulfur fuel or upgrade equipment such as generators to lower their emissions, according to the administration.
The administration has issued leaflets about the new regulations in both Chinese and English to all ships berthing at local ports. It also publicized its fuel rules via microblog and WeChat, but some ship owners still failed to comply, the administration said in a press release.
One major obstacle is the rising cost of low-sulfur fuel, which is less profitable to produce, it said.
The cost of low-sulfur fuel is several hundred times higher than ordinary fuel. For a 70,000-ton cargo ship, for instance, the operator has to spend over 10,000 yuan (US$1,524) every time it berths at local ports and changes to low-sulfur fuel, the administration said. Some old ships also have to do upgrades to cut emissions, which can cost up to 100,000 yuan.
According to national regulations, vessels entering waters in the emission-controlled area must use fuel with a sulfur content of no more than 0.5 percent. The fuel they use when they are berthed should have a sulfur content of no more than 0.1 percent.
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