David Balston News

Companies are leaving Britain's shipping registry due to uncertainty over Britain's departure from the European Union and future commercial arrangements with the bloc, industry officials say.All commercial ships have to be registered, or flagged, with a particular country partly to comply with safety and environmental regulations. Shipping companies in many so-called "flag states" pay corporation tax based on vessel tonnage rather than profit.Britain's ship registry forms part…

Members of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), including the UK Chamber, met last week in Istanbul, where they agreed to set new objectives in reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from shipping. To reduce international shipping’s total annual CO2 emissions by an agreed percentage by 2050, compared to 2008, as a point on a continuing trajectory of CO2 emissions reduction. The objectives aim to match the ambition of the Paris Agreement on climate change, while keeping CO2 reduction in the hands of the shipping industry itself with the IMO as its regulator. The ICS will suggest that IMO should adopt these objectives as part of its initial CO2 reduction strategy to be agreed in 2018, following the adoption of an IMO Roadmap at the request of the industry in 2016.

The Port of London is set to become the first UK port to recognise ship owners committed to progressively improving their environmental performance, as part of a wider approach to reduce the port’s environmental impact. The Port of London Authority (PLA) is set to introduce a discount on port charges for vessels with lower emissions that meet an Environmental Shipping Index (ESI) score of 30, or above. The ESI, developed by the World Ports Climate Initiative (WPCI), ranks ships’ environmental performance based on factors including emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulphur oxide, and carbon dioxide. It gives a ready reckoner rating for ships that perform better in reducing emissions than the current International Maritime Organisation emission standards.

The UK’s £10bn shipping industry has called the push toward closer union in Europe “distracting” and told the European Commission (EC) to stop interfering with the sector’s globally produced regulations. This is the gist of study on the impact UK’s shipping industry published by UK Chamber of Shipping. The study said that rules devised on a global scale helped to create a level playing field among competing firms. The study is designed to help the Prime Minister in determining what should be negotiated and sets out how the single market and EU regulation affects the industry which supports almost 500,000 UK jobs. It also analyses the current position of the UK Government in influencing affairs related to maritime policy in Brussels.

Tomorrow 23rd June international law firm Hill Dickinson LLP will be holding  its UK Ports Conference focusing on ‘The Future of UK Ports: changing regulation, shipping trend updates and new opportunities in the supply chain’. The 7th Annual UK Ports Conference will allow senior representatives from across the ports, shipping and maritime sector to network and discuss policy updates, shipping trends and the latest logistics and supply chain guidance. The day will also look at how to approach port development and funding and hear from UK ports on how ports can support the economic development of the local area and the wider UK. Another discussion point will be on EU state aid and the key risk factors are for UK ports.

New evidence has emerged that seal deaths around the UK’s coastal waters are the result of predatory behavior by grey seals, rather than ship propeller injuries, says UK Chamber of Shipping. Sea Mammal Research Unit researchers observed a grey seal killing five young seals, leaving them with the distinctive spiral seal injuries that had previously been believed to be the result of shipping activity. Combined with recent similar evidence from Germany, this suggests such behavior may be more common and could explain the unusual clusters of injured seals found in UK waters. David Balston, Director of Policy at the UK Chamber of Shipping said…

Inmarsat, a provider of global mobile satellite communications services, has staged the inaugural Smart Operations conference, the first in a series of events seeking an open debate in the maritime industry over the operational benefits of integrated thinking on shore and ship communications. With the first of the three new Global Xpress satellites already in orbit – a prelude to the global launch of the world’s first high-speed mobile broadband satellite service to the maritime industry…

The 2015 0.1% sulphur limit applies within the North Sea and English Channel and the Baltic Sea Emission Control Areas. These comments were made following the publication of a report by consultancy firm AMEC, commissioned by the Chamber on behalf of several North Sea and Western Channel shipping operators. The report says that the targets for shipping companies to reduce their sulphur emissions by 2015, could cause adverse environmental effects and result in a loss of 2,000 maritime services jobs, and place many more industrial jobs under threat. The report is the first of its kind to examine the full impact of hitting sulphur targets. • Significant increases (up to 29% in some cases) in the cost of passenger and container route ticket prices.