The Cook Islands delegation have called upon fellow Member States at the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) 69th Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) to take more responsibility to oversee the quality compliance of marine fuels.
The Cook Islands representative stated that, “we, the Member States need to accept far more robust oversight and capacity on compliant marine fuels.”
It was the Cook Islands that then commenced to lead the discussion on the involvement of Member States in determining quality of fuel oil and the responsibilities that lie within seeking out compliant and good fuel quality within the different shipping industry sectors.
Intercargo supported Cook Islands’ notion that Member States should have some part in fuel oil quality decisions, while IPTA agreed that the involvement of Member States in helping ship owners to seek out reputable fuel oil suppliers for compliance is vital. It should not be up to the purchaser to chase to see if the fuel is the right quality they concluded.
Cook Islands also drew upon where the responsibilities lie within other technologies, such as ballast water treatment systems. Making this comparison, they asked who bears the responsibility if a system is provided that results in faulty operation. Is it the ship owner, the manufacturer “or do those who have approved the system bear any responsibility?” Similarly with fuel oil quality, we need contractual obligations to differentiate who has the responsibility.
However, both the UK and Spain delegations agreed that the supplier to the fuel should be held under a commercial contract and so should not be treated under MARPOL as if the Administration were to become involved then “we find ourselves in a tricky situation” and it would be stepping out of the framework of the IMO if this is developed in relation to pollution.
Arsenio Dominguez, Chairman to the IMO MEPC and Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Panama to the IMO, suggested that based on the interventions the Committee Group will not be instructed to conduct further research and those Member States that want to pursue this in the future can put forward their proposals at future MEPC meetings.
The Cook Islands’ call to action came following the presentation of a report on Fuel Oil Quality by the United States.
The official agenda point for this report presentation read as follows:
5/3 Report of the Correspondence Group on Fuel oil Quality
The US as coordinator of the Correspondence Group on Fuel Oil Quality provides the report of the Group including a summary of the discussions to date and identifying remaining issues.
Some important points to note from the report were as follows:
- The group was instructed to:
Further develop draft guidance on best practice for assuring the quality of fuel oil delivered for use on board ships; Further examine the adequacy of the current legal framework in MARPOL Annex VI for assuring the quality of fuel oil for use on board ships; Submit a report to MEPC 69.
- With respect to the draft guidance the CG considered applicability of best practice for: Fuel oil providers, Fuel oil purchasers/users and Member States/coastal States.
- The CG requests the Committee to consider whether the development of best practice for fuel oil providers, fuel oil purchasers and for Member States/coastal States is appropriate and, if so, if the summaries provided in the respective annexes 1, 2 and 3 of the CG report should be used as the basis.
- The CGp was not in agreement on the adequacy of the current legal framework in MARPOL Annex VI for assuring the quality of fuel oil for use on board ships
ICS notes with concern from paragraph 3 of the report that when tasked with developing draft guidance on best practice for assuring the quality of fuel oil delivered for use on board ships that the group coordinator initially circulated a discussion document regarding best practice for fuel oil providers and fuel oil purchasers/users only. ICS does not understand why the initial discussion document omitted Member States/coastal States and why it was necessary to have yet another lengthy round of discussion on whether or not to incorporate guidance for an obvious stakeholder group in ensuring the quality of fuel oil delivered to ships. ICS believes this Committee has already made it clear at MEPC 68 that the Guidance should be developed relevant to the key stakeholders including Member States/coastal States under whose jurisdiction the fuel is being supplied to ships by suppliers. The Parties to MARPOL Annex VI have the responsibility under regulation 18.1 to “take all reasonable steps to promote the availability of fuel oils that comply with Annex VI” and under regulation 18.3 to have the responsibility to ensure that “fuel oil for combustion purposes delivered to ships meets the requirements of regulations 18.3.1 and 18.3.2.
With reference to the considerations requested of this Committee in paragraphs 8, 13 and 16 of the CG report ICS firmly believes that the “Guidance on best practice for assuring the quality of fuel oil delivered for use on board ships” to be developed should be relevant to Member States/coastal States in addition to fuel oil suppliers and fuel oil purchasers/users and urges the Committee to make this absolutely clear.
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