Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Port, Transport

The organisation explained that shipyards would not have enough time to reconstruct the vessels accordingly. The society might also not be prepared to handle the major price surge in ship transport.

From the year 2015, the vessels sailing on the Baltic Sea will be obliged to use fuel that is much more environment-friendly than the current type, and the ships will also have to be reconstructed. For a couple of years already, the shipowners operating on the North Sea and on the Baltic Sea have complained that if the maritime environment protection terms would be made stricter by the European Commission, the prices of ship transport would surge and the local companies’ competitiveness would be hurt.

Estonian shipowners have calculated that reconstructing vessels so that they would work on LNG or diesel fuel instead of mazut would cost them 10-15 million euros. Managing director of the Estonian Association of Shipowners Enn Kreem also asserted that reconstructing vessels by the year 2015 would not be feasible.

“This would be particularly costly and, as was discussed at a recent meeting of the European Union Association of Shipowners in Brussels, there might not be enough reconstruction capacities in the European Union, as an estimated 10,000 vessels would have to be reconstructed,” he explained, reported LETA.