Costa Cruises limits sulphur in Italian ports

The agreement is a significant step forward in cutting emissions as existing legislation requires the sulphur limit to be adhered to only while ships are moored. Over 70% of ships in the Costa fleet are already equipped with exhaust gas cleaning systems called ‘Advanced Air Quality Systems’, which ensure the almost complete removal of sulphur oxides, a 75% reduction of particulates and a significant reduction of nitrogen oxides.

Neil Palomba, president of Costa Cruises, said: “By signing up to the “Genoa Blue Agreement” protocol today, we have further strengthened our commitment to reducing the environmental impact of our ships.

“The commitment enshrined in the protocol today is one that Costa made voluntarily some years ago, as usual pre-empting future regulations.

“We are also pleased to see that other shipping companies and other maritime sectors have also signed up to this commitment, which will further benefit the communities we visit daily.”

More port calls

Since the end of March, Costa Fortuna, one of the ships in the Costa fleet, has returned to docking regularly in the port of Genoa, where it expects to handle 170,000 passengers in 2019.

In total, the Costa Group will guarantee the Liguria region 243 calls in 2019. Savona is currently Costa’s main port in the world. The company and the Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority are investing kore than €20m in preparation for the arrival of Costa Smeralda, Costa’s first ship fuelled by LNG.