California
January 2020
Marine Notice 2020-1 issued by California Air Resources Board is an advisory to “Owners or Operators of Ocean-Going Vessels Visiting California Ports” with a “Reminder of Requirements for Complying with the California Ocean-Going Vessel Fuel Regulation”
The Notice can be downloaded here or viewed at the following link together with other relevant Notices cited below: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ogv-fuel-regulation-marine-notices
The CARB OGV Fuel Regulation requires the use of marine distillate grade fuel (marine gas oil or marine diesel oil) with a maximum sulphur level of 0.1% while operating auxiliary diesel and diesel-electric engines, main propulsion diesel engines, and auxiliary boilers on ocean-going vessels within Regulated California Waters (all waters within 24 nautical miles of the California baseline).
It should be noted that the regulation does not allow compliance via scrubbers. Only the low sulphur distillate grades of fuel can be used to comply with the CARB OGV Fuel Regulation.
It not clear why the notice also goes on to say “There is no prohibition on scrubber operation under the CARB OGV Fuel Regulation. However, scrubbers cannot be used in lieu of distillate compliant fuel.
The specific regulations (rulemaking documents) relating to the Notices are:
Fuel regulation exemptions & excluded area
The rulemaking documents give the specific boundaries of where the Fuel Regulation applies and an excluded area, which was shown with a map in a number of Marine Notices including 2011-2. This small region near the north end of the Santa Barbara Channel is excluded from the regulatory boundary to encourage vessels to use the established shipping lanes in the Channel.
There are some exemptions to the Fuel Regulation including:
- Ocean-going vessel voyages that are comprised of continuous and expeditious navigation through any Regulated California Waters for the purpose of traversing such bodies of water without entering California internal or estuarine waters or calling at a port, roadstead, or terminal facility,
- For safety reasons (see Marine Notice 2011-5),
- Payment of non-compliance fees under limited circumstances (see Marine Notice 2011-3); and
- A temporary experimental or research exemption (see Marine Notice 2017-1)
Sunset Provision
There is also a ‘sunset provision’ (see Marine Notice 2016 -1) which states that the requirements of the California OGV Fuel Regulation will cease to apply if the United States adopts and enforces requirements that will achieve equivalent emissions reductions. However, despite the implementation of the North American Emission Control Area under MARPOL Annex VI Regulation 14, California’s regulation remains in place.
