NYK Orders Its First Scrubber Systems

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday July 26, 2017

Wärtsilä Corporation (Wärtsilä) today announced that the company has been contracted to supply the exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers) for two new 56,000 DWT Handymax bulk carriers being built by Japan's Oshima Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. (Oshima Shipbuilding) for Tokyo-based NYK Bulk & Projects Carriers Ltd. (NYK BP) - a wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK).

The order will allow the two ships to continue burning HSFO bunkers and be compliant with the tighter 0.50% global sulfur cap regulations on marine fuel coming in 2020.

"Together with Oshima Shipbuilding, we compared performance, price and fuel costs of similar products developed by other companies before choosing Wärtsilä's scrubber system," said a representative from NYK BP.

Wärtsilä notes that the order marks the first vessels owned or chartered by NYK Group to have scrubber systems installed, and the first time Wärtsilä's has supplied this equipment to any Japanese company.

Under the contract, Wärtsilä will also provide project management and commissioning of the scrubber systems.

"We are pleased and proud to be the supplier of choice for these two new ships, especially as it gives us an inroad into the Japanese market for exhaust gas cleaning solutions. The value proposition that Wärtsilä presented was clearly the deciding factor in the award of this contract," said Sigurd Jenssen, Director of Exhaust Gas Cleaning at Wärtsilä Marine Solutions.

The  equipment from Wärtsilä is scheduled for delivery to the yard beginning in July 2018, with the first vessel slated for delivery to NYK in 2018 Q4, and the second in 2019 Q1.

The order comes at a time of much debate over owners' compliance solution choices for 2020, and in particular whether they should fit scrubbers and carry on burning the same HFO they do today, or simply switch to burning inherently compliant low sulfur fuel - most likely LSMGO.

While some companies, such as Maersk, have already said they will take the fuel switching route, others, such as OOCL, say it is too earlier to make such a decision