“The 2020 IMO marine regulation change is one of the most dramatic ever seen to product specifications, although the shipping and refining industries have had several years notice,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its annual Oil 2019 report last week. These regulations by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as of January 1, 2020, limit the sulfur content in marine fuel to 0.5 percent from 3.5 percent currently. As 2020 draws nearer, oil refiners around the world, from Europe to the United States to Asia, are preparing to capture as high refinery margins for distillates like diesel and marine gasoil as they can get. That’s why some refiners have changed their maintenance schedules for 2019, with planned refinery stoppages heavily geared toward the spring in the first half of the year, leaving more operating refining capacity for the fall of 2019, when the 2020 ship fuel change will […]