Americas News
Interlake to Outfit Two More of Its Vessels with Scrubbers
U.S. based Great Lakes shipping line, The Interlake Steamship Company (Interlake) Tuesday announced that it will install scrubber systems on two of its vessels, the M/V Lee A. Tregurtha, and M/V James R. Barker, early next year.
The announcement is said to come on the heels of Interlake's installation exhaust gas scrubbers on its self-unloading bulk carrier M/V Hon. James L. Oberstar earlier this year, with the company's emission reduction efforts now expanded to cover one-third of its fleet.
"The 826-foot Tregurtha and 1,003-foot Barker will be equipped with the same single-inlet, closed-loop DuPont Marine Scrubbers from Belco Technologies Corp. (BELCO), a division of DuPont Sustainable Solutions," said Interlake in a statement.
Interlake says the scrubber system uses a series sprays to “wash” the exhaust gas, removing impurities, such as sulfur and particulate matter.
“That washed gas then moves through a droplet separator before a clean plume of white steam is discharged into the atmosphere” Interlake explained.
Interlake also notes that the ships will have to be stocked with sodium hydroxide twice per month, as the scrubber system requires sodium hydroxide injection in order to neutralize sulfur from the exhaust gas.
“This technology allows us to achieve our goal of continually shrinking our fleet’s environmental footprint while dependably, safely and efficiently delivering raw materials to our steel, construction and power generation customers throughout the Great Lakes,” said Mark Barker, Interlake President.
“The sulfur reductions have exceeded our expectations. We have proven the technology on our 800-foot traditional Laker and now we’re ready to scale up to our 1,000-foot class ships with our first installation on the James R. Barker.”
“DuPont/BELCO has been an incredible partner in working with us on this effort of implementing freshwater closed-loop scrubbers on a retrofit basis.”
Interlake says that they intend for a total of five Interlake vessels, including the M/V Paul R. Tregurtha and M/V Mesabi Miner, both 1000-foot vessels, to be outfitted with the scrubbers by 2017.
In January, Barker told Ship & Bunker, that the company had postponed its plans to use liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkers for Emissions Control Area (ECA) compliance, instead turning to HFO and scrubbing technology.
