据今日原油价格网3月25日消息，路透社周一在新奥尔良召开的第47届Scotia Howard Weil年度能源会议上援引埃克森美孚（ExxonMobil）燃料和润滑油总裁布莱恩?米尔顿（Bryan Milton）的话称，由于2020年开始对船舶燃料实施更严格的排放法规，预计到2025年，全球对高硫燃料油的需求将下降25%。

国际海事组织(IMO)将于2020年1月1日发布新硫含量规定，将船舶燃料的硫含量从目前的3.5%下调至0.5%。

国际能源机构在本月早些时候发布的《2019年石油年度报告》中提到了明年的国际海事组织规则，该报告称，全球下游行业正处于“有史以来最大的重组之一”的顶点。

国际能源署在年度报告中估计，自20世纪60年代以来主要船舶燃料高硫燃料油（HSFO）的需求将从一年内350万桶/天下降到140万桶/天，到2020年底，大型船舶上将安装4000个洗涤器，消耗70万桶/天的燃料油。

与此同时，国际能源署指出，尽管价格更高，但许多航运公司将更愿意使用海洋天然气（MGO）而不是新的极低硫燃料油（VLSFO），预计对MGO的需求将从2019年的89万桶/天跃升至2020年的198万桶/天。

国际能源署表示，未来几年燃油需求下降和石化产品增加将使美国石油生产商受益，这些生产商的典型原油产品较轻。

与此同时，从欧洲到美国，再到亚洲，世界各地的炼油商正准备为柴油和船用汽油等馏分油争取尽可能高的炼油利润率。

为此，一些炼油厂改变了2019年的维护计划，计划今年上半年的炼油厂停工主要针对春季，为2019年秋季留下更多的运营炼油能力，届时2020年船舶燃料的变化将迫在眉睫。

尹路 编译自 今日原油价格

原文如下：

Exxon Expects Demand For High-Sulfur Fuel Oil To Drop 25%

Global demand for high-sulfur fuel oil is expected to drop by 25 percent through 2025 because of the stricter emissions regulations for ship fuel beginning in 2020, Reuters quoted Bryan Milton, President of ExxonMobil Fuels and Lubricants, as saying at the Scotia Howard Weil 47th Annual Energy Conference in New Orleans on Monday.

The new sulfur content regulations by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as of January 1, 2020, limit the sulfur content in fuels for ships to 0.5 percent, slashed from the current 3.5-percent limit.

The downstream sector globally is on the cusp of “one of the biggest shakeups ever,” the IEA said in its Oil 2019 annual report earlier this month, referring to the IMO rules as of next year.

The IEA estimates in the annual report that demand for high sulfur fuel oil (HSFO), the main vessel fuel since the 1960s, will plunge to 1.4 million bpd from 3.5 million bpd in just one year, and that there will be 4,000 scrubbers installed on large vessels by the end of 2020, consuming 700,000 bpd of fuel oil.

At the same time, many shipping companies will prefer to use marine gasoil (MGO) instead of a new very low sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO), despite its higher price, the IEA notes, estimating that demand for MGO will jump from 890,000 bpd in 2019 to 1.98 million bpd in 2020.

The drop in fuel oil demand and the rise of petrochemicals over the next few years will benefit the U.S. oil producers whose typical crude products are lighter, the IEA said.

Meanwhile, oil refiners around the world from Europe to the United States to Asia are preparing to capture high refinery margins for distillates like diesel and marine gasoil—as high as they can get.

To this end, some refiners have changed their maintenance schedules for 2019, with planned refinery stoppages heavily geared toward the spring in the first half of the year, leaving more operating refining capacity for the fall of 2019, when the 2020 ship fuel change will be imminent.