As from January 2015, all shipping lines will be affected by stricter low sulphur fuel laws on trades crossing North Europe/Baltic, US and Canada. The sulphur content in fuel has to be reduced from max. 1% to max. 0.1%. California applies this rule already today. Hapag-Lloyd supports these changes and will of course fully comply with the new rules. We are confident that you as our customer also support these new rules. The new low sulphur fuel regulations will result in extensive increases in bunker costs. Low sulphur fuel prices are expected to be between 50% and 100% above current bunker fuel costs – also driven by a much higher demand from 2015 onwards. Consequently Hapag-Lloyd will need to revise the current Low Sulphur Fuel Surcharges for all quotations with a validity into 2015.