Chinese regulators have updated part of its domestic emission control area (DECA) regulations with effect from 1 January 2019, but has not yet placed a full ban on open-loop scrubbers, states BIMCO.
Several media have reported that the Ministry of Transport in Beijing has now banned open-loop scrubbers from the country’s emission control areas (ECAs), which now cover most of China’s territorial waters. From its own sources, BIMCO concludes that 'according to the updated regulation, the banned areas for discharging wastewater from scrubbers remain within inland ECAs, port waters under coastal DECA and the Bohai Bay waters only.'
Yet, the same sources also told BIMCO a full ban may be imminent.
Source: BIMCO.
