Willer Bordon News

Italy plans to ban single hull tankers from seven port areas from April 23 to reduce risks of environmental damage, said an anonymous Environment Ministry official said. The official confirmed remarks by Environment Minister Willer Bordon in Genoa earlier this week that the government was preparing a directive aimed at improving safety standards. "This directive represents a notable leap in safety," Bordon said on the sidelines of a seminar on maritime oil traffic organized by local environmental groups. The ban will apply to the following seven port areas: a sea mammal sanctuary stretching from the upper Tyrrhenian Sea to the Ligurian Sea…

When OPA 90 was introduced in wake of the Valdez accident, the stipulation that tankers trading in the U.S. must be double hulled was roundly panned throughout the world, as industry experts bemoaned the fact that one country have such a deciding impact on vessel design. How soon they forget. Ten years and a few tragic sinkings off European shores have let to Italy's sudden plan to ban single-hulled tankers from seven key port areas, a move which some contend will cripple a pipeline feeding oil to Germany from the Italian port of Trieste, a leading brokerage warned. "The ban will be felt in Germany and Austria," said Italy's largest brokerage Banchero Costa.