EPS Orders Bound4Blue Suction Sails for Tanker

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Thursday February 22, 2024

Singapore-based shipping company EPS has ordered a suction sail system from Bound4Blue for one of its tankers.

The system will be retrofitted onto one of its tankers later this year, the company said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday.

The firm expects the system to deliver an energy consumption cut of about 10%, subject to routing.

"Since 2018, our investments in green projects including dual fuel vessels, carbon capture, biofuels, voyage optimisation technology and more have allowed us to reduce our emissions intensity by 30% and achieve an Annual Efficiency Ratio (AER) of 3.6 CO2g/dwt-mile in 2023, outperforming our emission intensity targets ahead of schedule," the company said in the post.

"With this eSAILs project, we are confident that the emission reductions gained through wind-assisted propulsion on our fleet will help us better evaluate GHG reduction potential in the long run."

Wind-assisted propulsion systems are gaining in popularity in the shipping industry as a means of cutting bunker consumption and GHG emissions. The systems are likely to become more widespread once shipping companies start to take on much more expensive alternative bunker fuels, making energy-saving systems more profitable.