It has been reported to the Club that Yangtze River Delta will take the lead in implementing the Emission Control Areas (ECAs) for vessels. The implementation will take place in two stages.

The first stage is that as of 1st April 2016, all vessels at berth in key ports of Yangtze River Delta shall be required to use bunker fuels with sulphur content of not more than 0.5%m/m, meanwhile the vessels are encouraged to use bunker fuels with not more than 0.1%m/m sulphur during berthing period and use bunker fuels with sulphur content of not more than 0.5%m/m when entering into Emission Control Area. The key ports within Yangtze River Delta are currently determined as including Shanghai Port, Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, Suzhou Port which includes Zhangjiagang, Changshu and Taicang and Nantong Port.

In addition, after evaluation, the second stage shall require all vessels entering into ECA to use bunker fuel with not more than 0.5%m/m sulphur, all vessels at berth shall use bunker fuel with sulphur content of not exceeding 0.1%m/m and eventually all vessels shall use bunker fuel with no more than 0.1%m/m in the ECA water.