2020 – the year which maritime industry is about to witness a sea change both in terms of compliance with environmental requirements and ship’s operation. To comply with global 0.5% Sulfur cap, fitting an exhaust gas cleaning system remains an obvious choice for many. But, the question remains same on scrubber availability, retrofit options, and financing an approximate $1 million to $10 million (depending upon the size of scrubbers).
Scrubber – “Yes”:
Vroon last week announced that its tanker ‘Iver Progress’, which is on a charter with Irving Oil Ltd. (Irving Oil Ltd.), has recently completed a drydock period in Gibraltar in which the vessel received the installation of an exhaust gas scrubber.
“This investment will enable the vessel to operate permanently within emission-control areas (ECA) while burning residual fuels,” explained Vroon.
Vroon notes that four other vessels, including the East Coast, Acadian, New England, and Great Eastern, have already been outfitted with exhaust gas scrubbers, and are fully operational on charter to Irving Oil.
Scrubber – “No”:
Jack Hsu, managing director of Oak Maritime (HK) Inc Ltd (Oak Maritime) says ship owners should be in no rush to install scrubbers to achieve compliance amid tighter global emission regulations on shipping set to come into force in 2020.
“In 2020, the 0.5 percent sulfur cap comes in and that 0.5 percent is basically a distillate,” IHS Fairplay quoted Hsu as saying at the recent Asian Logistics and Maritime Conference (ALMC) in Hong Kong.
“So we are talking about bunker oil that is currently around $270 per ton against distillate that is rough $400 per ton. When the prices will equilibrate is only a matter of time, so from an owner’s perspective I would rather delay installing scrubbers as a way to take care of the SOx problem.”
Scrubber – “Yes”:
Ship owners Should Not Underestimate 2020 Low Sulfur Bunker Costs, Warns Nick Confuorto of CR Ocean Engineering – as reported by Ship & Bunker.
We asked Viswa Lab for a “Yes” or “No” for scrubbers. The top management revealed that Viswa Lab has some innovative ideas and designs of exhaust gas cleaning systems/scrubbers when compared to the existing industry’s conventional scrubbers. Here are two important news items which we published earlier on some points to consider why Scrubbers would be a way to go forward.
Viswa Lab Looks forward to Scrubbers – Click here to read more!
Marine Scrubbers – An Environment-Friendly Solution – Click here to read more!
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