Worldwide Price Announcement – IMO 2020 Transition Charge (ITC)

The maritime industry is facing great changes, entailing a radical transformation: to remain fully compliant with latest IMO requirements, vessels may only use marine fuel (LSFO) with a maximum sulphur content of 0.5 percent, as opposed to the current capping of 3.5 percent.

The well communicated IMO 2020 regulation is so far the largest in a series of International Maritime Organization (IMO) measures to reduce marine pollution. Using low sulphur fuel oil will be the key as most environmentally friendly short term solution for the shipping industry to remain compliant. As Hapag-Lloyd, we fully subscribe to these goals.

Our already well known and industrywide well accepted Marine Fuel Recovery (MFR) mechanism, introduced on February 1, 2019 will consider taking on compliant fuel starting with the 1st quarter 2020, with a focus on cargoes contracted for long- and medium-term periods.

For adequate coverage of all FAK cargo, Spot- and "Quick Quotes" business, a supplementary element needs to be applied in addition to the MFR, in order to recover the fuel spread between HSFO 3.5% and LSFO 0.5% as well as operational transition costs that are not part of the MFR calculation.

Therefore, and applicable to this particular cargo segment only, we will introduce an IMO 2020 Transition Charge (ITC) as of December 1, 2019 , valid until further notice, with details per trade as outlined in the table below:

NOTE: Future updates on this ITC table overview are documented in the Trade Surcharges Section of our Online Business Suite.