The United Arab Emirates has confirmed its commitment to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)'s 2010 phase-out of single hull tankers.

“We are streamlining our regulations and we have made it clear that no single hull tankers will be allowed to trade in the UAE after the 2010 deadline,” Badreya Ahmed Al Dhahri, Director of the Marine Affairs Department at the National Transport Authority (NTA) has been quoted saying.

“Marine safety is a top priority for ship registration in the UAE and vessels that do not meet our safety requirements cannot operate here,” Al Dhahri added.

The UAE's commitment to the IMO's deadline has come even as several Asian and Middle East countries are expected to allow single hull tankers to continue trading beyond the 2010 phase-out.

Avinash Kadam, Senior General Manager at Maersk Tankers told the recent Energy Shipping conference in Singapore that some countries have extended the deadline till 2015 due to tight tanker avails and surging freight rates.

“With a number of major importers such as India and a number of South-East Asian countries set to allow single hulls past 2010, and similarly Middle East export markets, trading looks set to continue,” he said.

Brokers tell Tankerworld that the Middle East nation with the most influence on tanker markets is Saudi Arabia.

With regards to Saudi Arabia, Kadam said that the Kingdom “has ratified Marpol, but has not made their position on phase-out clear.”

“If they do not call any of the exceptions the largest exporter in the world would ban single hulls from entering domestic waters in three years time,” he added.

A Singapore-based ship broker specialising in voyages east from the Middle East, agreed that Saudi Arabia's stand would be crucial.

“But currently there already isn't much single hulls in the market, as they are very old vessels. Out of my position list of 141 aframaxes for example, only ten are single hulls,” he told Tankerworld Thursday.

However figures from BP however indicate that many Asian countries are continuing to fix significant numbers of single-hulled VLCCs from the spot market this year.

The first quarter of this year saw 65% of South Korean spot VLCC fixtures consist of single hulls, while that figure was 89% for India and 95% for Taiwan.

A chartering manager suggested to Tankerworld that the reason for continual high volumes of single hull VLCC fixtures from those countries was due to “cheaper rates compared to double hulls, while the authorities are also less stringent on single hull regulations.”

Louisa Follis, a General Manager at Simpson Spence & Young Research, told the Energy Shipping conference earlier this month that there has been a slow-down of single hull chartering.

“[Despite that] I don't believe 100% of the single hull fleet will go,” she said in reference to the IMO's 2010 phase-out deadline.

Follis also said at the time that there had not been any signals from Middle East exporting nations that they would not accept single hull tankers from 2010.