Finland’s Neste Corporation announced on Wednesday that it will begin the distribution of low sulphur bunker fuel in Sweden at the Sodertalje terminal on 1 January 2017.

The distribution operation will see Neste primarily serve Metropolitan Stockholm, but it will also supply low sulphur bunker fuel to other places on the Eastern coast of Sweden if necessary.

The current EU and international regulations require lower sulphur emissions from ships operating on the Baltic Sea, North Sea and the English Channel. Neste is presently offering two low sulphur marine fuels with sulphur content of less than 0.1%.

“We are extremely happy to open low sulphur bunker fuel distribution services in Sweden at the turn of the year. To us, this means expanding the market area of marine fuels, and we will also continue to survey new markets in Northern Europe,” said Matti Lehmus, executive vice president, oil products at Neste.

“Our marine fuels are a good solution to reduce sulphur emissions and meet the tightening regulations, and using them requires hardly any investments or modifications to the vessels,” he added.

The global fuel sulphur content cap will tighten from 2020 to 0.5% from the current 3.5% after IMO confirmed the implementation year at a Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 70) meeting held last month.

The move would require wider availability of the low sulphur bunker grade for ships to meet the global regulation.

Source: seatrade-maritime.com