The Chinese Government has announced that the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and the Bohai Bay waters will become Asia’s first Emission Control Area (ECA) force from 2017.
The designation of this ECA, the first of its kind outside of Europe and North America, will require ships calling at the core ports within the ECA zones to use bunker fuel containing no more than 0.5% sulphur while at berth, except during the first hour after arrival and the last hour before departure from 1 January 2017.
From 1 January 2018 bunker fuel sulphur content limits will be extended to force across all ports within the ECA zones. Then, as of 1 January 2019 the regulation will cover all ships operating within 20 nautical miles off the Chinese coastline.
Under this new ECA regulation, alternative methods of compliance will be permitted, such as the use of shore power, “clean energy,” exhaust gas after treatment systems (scrubbers), and other unspecified alternative measures.
China’s Ministry of Transport has also revealed that after one year Beijing is to discuss whether increasing the sulphur cap to 0.1%. They are also looking into shore power and the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) within the Yangtze River Delta to serve as an experiment with a view to nationally rolling out LNG infrastructure.
