EMEA News
Scrubbers One Part of the Solution to Multi-Fuel Market, Says Wartsila
Shipping is increasingly looking at a multi-fuel market in which there will be many responses from shipowners and operators when complying with new regulations, a Wartsila executive has said.
Wartsila director of exhaust gas cleaning Sigurd Some Jenssen told trade news provider Container Shipping & Trade that the trend for shipowners will be to use a range of methods to adapt to the changing bunker fuel market, including exhaust gas cleaning systems which are more commonly referred to as scrubbers.
"Scrubbers are the best way of complying for existing ships. They are an easy and low-cost solution to the challenge," Jenssen was quoted as saying.
But commenting on the decision by Danish shipping giant Maersk to forego the scrubber option, he acknowledged that there was no "single right solution" for shipowners.
"There is a place for both [opting for compliant fuel] and for scrubbers," he said.
To date the take up of scrubbers by shipowners has been low. Observers say that the prevalent 'wait-and-see' approach is unlikely to change until price differentials between marine fuel grades post-2020 become clear.
In broad terms, the price of low sulfur fuel is expected to rise on strong demand and short supply while for high sulfur fuel oil (HSFO) the reverse case is expected. A low price for HSFO is expected to stimulate demand for scrubbers.
From the start of 2020, the global sulfur cap on bunker fuel falls to 0.5%.
