The company's technical director and head of the fleet operations, Akbar Jebel Ameli, said NITC won the certificate for properly controlling and reporting CO2 emission of its fleet.

He said, "In the near future, the vessels will be classified based on their CO2 emission and can start up a new trade."

The MRV regulation of the European Union (EU) requires ship owners and managers to prepare a monitoring plan for each of their vessels that call ports within the EU.

Jebel Ameli said the certificate means that NITC has fully complied with MRV regulations by November 8 2017. This is the first time that such a certificate has been issued for the company.