This publication has received an unconfirmed report that TMS Group is expanding an existing deal to fit scrubbers to dozens of vessels in the TMS fleet.
Agreement details
The original agreement, announced at a signing ceremony in Greece, in early July (pictured above), awarded a contract to South Korea’s Panasia group for exhaust gas cleaning systems, or scrubbers, to be installed on 53 TMS vessels in the group’s tanker and bulker fleets.
However, both the number of vessels and the monetary value of the contract have now increased, according to sources with knowledge of the deal.
Additional scrubber systems
Set at US$67M in Greek media reports, the value of the contract is also expected to increase with the additional scrubber systems. At time of publication, details regarding the number of additional vessels to receive scrubber systems and the added cost to the contract remain unspecified.
The original contract was signed on 5 July 2018 with Panasia chairman SooTae (Robert) Lee and the Korean ambassador to Greece in attendance, along with 30 other attendees from related companies. Athens-based ship repair brokers BPCO Ltd negotiated the deal as agents for Panasia in Europe.
A recent report from Argus Media put the total for installed and ordered scrubber systems across the shipping industry at 842, while the Exhaust Gas Cleaning System Association (EGCSA) reported 983 scrubber systems installed or on order as of May 2018.
Recent purchases
The Panasia deal follows recent news of lucrative scrubber purchases including Wärtsilä’s US$200M scrubber sale to a ‘major’ box shipper named by various media outlets as MSC in July and Star Bulk’s June announcement that it is adding 24 scrubbers to its to fleet, among others.
Frontline, which ordered scrubbers for 14 tankers with the option to add 22 more on tankers of unspecified size, are among the shipowners with the most scrubber orders. DHT Holdings is retrofitting scrubbers on 12 of its existing VLCCs and commissioning two newbuild VLCC with scrubbers. Other tanker shipowners outfitting VLCCs and Suezmaxes with scrubbers include Cosmo, Hunter Group, Kyklades Maritime, Maran Tankers, Sentek Marine & Trading and Trafigura.
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Source: Marine Propulsion & Auxiliary Machinery
