Following its announcement on fitting ballast water management systems to its fleet, Scorpio Tankers has now committed to fitting exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers) to approximately 90 tankers in its fleet.
In the latest announcement, Scorpio Tankers reported an agreement to retrofit 15 of its LR2s with scrubbers.
Scorpio has agreed letters of intent with suppliers, engineering firms, and ship repair facilities to cover the purchase and installation of scrubbers on most of its remaining owned and leased LR2, LR1, and MR tanker vessels (approximately 75 vessels) between Q2 2019 and Q2 2020.
The scrubbers and their installation are expected to cost between US$1.5M and US$2.2M per vessel, and the company anticipates that between 60-70% of these costs will be financed.
Scorpio Tankers chairman and chief executive officer Emanuele Lauro commented “We have long maintained that the IMO 2020 regulations are both disruptive to the shipping industry generally as well as a powerful demand catalyst for product tankers. Although many well-capitalised and publicly-listed shipowners can source capital and publicise their intentions to pursue scrubbers, most of our industry cannot, and will rely on cleaner fuels to the benefit of tonne-mile demand for product tankers. Irrespective, our focus remains on operating the most competitive fleet in our marketplace, and this has led us to carefully evaluate and ultimately opt for the benefits of fitting hybrid-ready scrubbers on approximately 90 ships in our fleet.”
Business, operational and technical issues impacting the crude, product and chemical tanker trades will be discussed in London at the Tanker Shipping & Trade Conference, Awards & Exhibition, 20-21 November 2018.
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