Banned oil – “the worst thing you can imagine”

The thick oil that flows out of the grounded ship Marco Polo has been banned in international shipping for a few years, Vetenskapsradion reports.

– This fuel is the very worst you can imagine, says Ida-Maja Hassellöv, professor of marine engineering at Chalmers University of Technology to the radio.

The viscous heavy oil contains a lot of sulfur and was therefore banned by the UN International Maritime Organization IMO in 2020. Despite the ban, Marco Polo has received an exemption due to new technology that cleans the exhaust gases from sulphur.

The passenger ferry TT-Line Marco Polo, which is flagged in Cyprus, was on its way from Trelleborg to Karlshamn and then on to Klaipeda in Lithuania when the vessel ran aground on 22 October.