Brussels, 19/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, one month after the Prestige oil tanker disaster in Galicia, the European Commission is to present measures for early elimination of single hull oil tankers. It hopes the measures will be adopted sufficiently soon to take effect in March 2003. The Commission proposes to amend the regulation adopted this year in order to ban single hull oil tankers in European waters: (1) from 2005 for tankers of over 23 years of age of over 20,000 gross tonnage and not equipped with separate ballast tanks (instead of 2007 as foreseen in the current regulation); (2) from 2010, for vessels over 28 years old and equipped with separate ballast (instead of 2015); (3) from 2015, for tankers carrying raw oil of a tonnage between 5,000 and 20,000 tonnes or tankers carrying oil products weighing between 5,000 and 30,000 tonnes. The Commission also proposes immediately banning the transport of heavy fuel for single hull vessels, which accounts for around 15% of crude oil imported into the EU. Finally, it proposes strengthening the inspections on single hull tankers over 15 years old. Foreseeing the criticism this could raise among shipowners who consider that there are not enough double hull tankers to meet demand, the Commission is expected to announce that it will present an economic analysis on the impact of this new timetable as soon as possible.