Waiver Uncertainty Complicates IMO 2020 Deadline
Some shipping executives expect that ports, which can issue fines for the use of non-compliant fuel, will grant waivers in the initial months after the sulphur content deadline hits, so long as the shipping companies can demonstrate they made their best efforts to comply.
Shipowners have an obligation to report that they could not find compliant fuel to the country on which ports the vessel calls, under IMO rules.
Jeanne Grasso, an attorney at Blank Rome who specializes in maritime law, warned the delegates at the 25th annual Hellenic-American/Norwegian-American chambers of commerce joint shipping conference in New York yesterday that shipowners cannot count of exemptions even if they comply with those reporting requirements.
Shipowners "have to rely on the good graces of the port-state not to exercise enforcement", Grasso said.
"Waiver Uncertainty Complicates IMO 2020 Deadline," was published in Argus Media Blog on February 6, 2019.Â