Shipping has largely avoided serious, headline-grabbing mishaps in its adjustment to IMO 2020 so far.

But the transition is less orderly than it seems, several shipping players said at a conference in Athens last week.

"It’s the Wild West," Panos Zachariadis, technical director at Atlantic Bulk Carriers Management, said at the Naftemporiki Shipping Forum.

Fuel samples are a particular case in point, argued Zachariadis, who also sits on Bimco’s marine committee.