The 80th session of IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 80) has initiated the review of the short-term measures, ie the Carbon Intensity Indicators (CII), Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI) and Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP), by approving the plan for such a review.
The scope of the review will include experiences with the enforcement of short-term measures by Flag States and Port State Control (PSC), the CII metrics (currently Annual Efficiency Ratio (AER)), as well as correction factors and voyage adjustments for CII.
The review will be carried out in three phases:
Data to facilitate the review
MEPC 80 also approved changes to datapoints that shall be submitted annually to the IMO Ship Fuel Oil Consumption Database. The changes are expected to be adopted by MEPC 81 in April next year. However, these changes may not enter into force in the autumn of 2025 at the earliest, with application for the calendar year 2026. Therefore, data containing the new datapoints will not be available for consideration in the second half of 2027. Meanwhile, the review of short-term measures according to MARPOL Annex VI has to be concluded by 1 January 2026.
Consequently, Flag States and other stakeholders, such as international organisations representing shipowners and/or charterers, are invited to collect data to facilitate the review process and submit it to IMO no later than by MEPC 82 in the autumn of 2024.
The move is being launched after the regulation received a lot of criticism amid fears that the methodology used might result in unintended consequences and penalization.
Related Articles
Oldendorff blasts CII calling for urgent revision
MSC: CII methodology must be revised to avoid unintended penalizing of ships Regulation & Policy The ship with the best AER would be the ship always trading in ballast condition without any cargo onboard With the present CII metric, the ship with the best AER would be the ship always trading in ballast condition without any cargo onboard. As a result, the current metric penalises efficiently operated ships carrying cargo, while favouring inefficiently utilised empty ships. Whereas the metric AER favours ships in ballast condition, the voluntary metric currently used for trial purposes – the Energy Efficiency Operational Indicator (EEOI) severely penalises them. Neither is appropriate. Ballast condition is an integral part of ships’ normal operation and should neither be favoured nor severely penalised.
Deduction of fuel oil consumption when the ship is not underway from the calculation of the attained CII
The inclusion of fuel consumption when the ship is not underway in the calculation of the attained CII also pose challenges for a functioning CII framework because:
