DHT's Scrubbers Have Already Earned Back 30% of Their Cost

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Friday February 7, 2020

Shipping company DHT Holdings has already earned back 30.6% of its capital expenditure on scrubber installations in fuel savings, the company said this week.

By 31 December the company had installed the emissions-cleaning systems on 12 vessels at a cost of $47.7 million, it said in an earnings release.

To date DHT has now bunkered high-sulfur fuel oil (HSFO) for these vessels instead of very low sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO) 15 times, and has saved $14.6 million as a result, it said.

Six more scrubber installations have been delayed "due to the strong market conditions," it said.

The company has been able to buy HSFO so far at an average discount to VLSFO of $304/mt.

At Rotterdam on Thursday HSFO was available at a $277/mt discount to VLSFO, according to Ship & Bunker pricing.

The $47.7 million the company has paid in capital expenditure for its scrubbers so far is not the total cost.

Added to that should be the cost of borrowing to finance them -- DHT has a $45 million credit facility for the scrubber work at a cost of Libor plus 2.4% -- and the running cost of the equipment.

And off-hire time related to scrubber installations has cost the company $6.7 million so far, DHT said, with each ship spending an average of 37.2 days in yard.