The world's top maritime body has brought forward a deadline to phase-out single hull oil tankers from the world's oceans, but tankers carrying heavy oil of the type that devastated Spanish beaches will still be allowed to trade until April 2005.
The United Nations' International Maritime Organisation (IMO) hammered out the stricter laws late last night that bring forward its original staggered global phase-out by at least five years.
"The phase-out timetable has been greatly simplified and accelerated," said an IMO spokesman in London, adding the body expected to issue a detailed statement on it later today.
The IMO unanimously agreed to ban the carriage of all "heavy grades of oil" including fuel oil, which have blighted Spain's northwestern coastline, from April 2005.
The European Union, which, in the wake of the Prestige tanker disaster had banned single-hull tankers carrying heavy oil from calling at its ports, had been pressing for a worldwide ban to be enforced immediately.
The IMO said it "did not represent a defeat" for the bloc's proposal as all the European Union countries had approved the new regulations and were involved in drawing up the timetable.
"All the EU countries have been part of the process and every one of them voted and approved without a hint of deferral," the spokesman said.
Under the new laws the last phase-out date for all single-hulled oil tankers is 2010 instead of 2015, with the oldest, built in 1977 and earlier taken out of service in April 2005.
There are some compromises to the timetable, however.
Individual nations, or flag states, could in some circumstances allow the operation of single hull tankers to 2015 or the 25th anniversary of build so long as they pass a strict survey to make sure they are seaworthy and present no safety or environmental hazard.