Background
IMO has introduced guidelines to control pollution emission from ships to atmosphere with its guidelines of “Regulations for the Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships”, MARPOL Annex VI adopted on 19 May 2005, which has been updated at later meetings. Regulation 14 of this guideline is about controlling SOx emission from marine diesel engines from
1) All ships of 400 gross tonnage
2) Fixed or floating platforms (drilling rigs) and
3) Floating craft and submersibles.
For the enforcement of the regulation, Sulfur Emission control areas (SECA) are set firstly in Europe and North America. 0.1% sulfur content limit in the fuel oil applies from 1 Jan 2015. There are some SECA possibly announced in the same way as existing SECA.