New directive leads to cheating and considerably increased customer prices

I have recently discussed the new directive regarding sulphur regulation put forth by the EU and the UN which will come into force January 1st of 2015.

This means that the sulphur content of the flue gas from all the ships in Northern Europe must reduce their emissions from the current permissible level of 1.0 percent to 0.1 percent. To meet these demands, every shipping companies that travels by the Baltic Sea and the North Sea (Scandinavia), as well as the English Channel, has to invest extensively in their ships. 

I am convinced very few of the companies will carry these environmental investments through, which is a necessity for this to become a reality. And why won’t they do it? Well, there are no helpful tools and no authority has been appointed responsible for ensuring that the new rules are followed.  

For NTEX, the new directive will lead to distinctively higher costs for freight across the North Sea, and above all, the Baltic Sea. We are talking several millions Swedish kronor which we will have to invest in our transportation fleet.

In the end this affects the customers.

We recently received new price lists from some of the shipping companies that we use for freight and according to those our prices will rise significantly. If this becomes a reality NTEX alone will have an increased cost of close to 16 million Swedish kronor a year because our trailer trucks travel by these seas.

This is a cost that unfortunately will have to be paid by our customers.

Thomas Ström
Founder and CEO of NTEX