Scorpio Tankers to Delay Scrubber Decision

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday December 20, 2017

Oil products carrier Scorpio Tankers is to put back any decisions on installing scrubbers on its ships until 2020, a senior executive has said.

Chief operating officer Cameron Mackey said that now is not the time to make such a decision which may not come unitl after 2020, the date at which the global sulfur cap on bunker fuel falls to 0.5%.

A key factor in the prevarication is uncertainty over availability of low sulfur fuel and how the spread between low and high sulfur material will pan out.

"There is a lot of concern that there is not yet a clearing price in the forward curve for heavy fuel oil post-2020," Mackey was quoted as saying by maritime news provider Lloyd's List.

"People are really scrambling to either give [heavy fuel oil] away, or model it into their business plans, or set up some mechanism that the market can clear millions of tonnes of heavy fuel oil that does not have a natural end-user right now."

Another concern is regulatory uncertainty as regulators could move against open loop scrubbers making closed loop systems the only option. Open loop sees waste water discharged into the open sea while closed loop has waste water retained onboard and discharged at a later date..

Ship & Bunker News Team
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