Scrubber market still robust, despite premium declines

“The higher the VLSFO premium, the more attractive the investment in a scrubber is because the payback period is shorter,” explains BIMCO. “However, the [current] lower-than-expected VLSFO premium has likely discouraged owners from installing scrubbers, particularly on smaller ships with lower bunker consumption and lower savings as a result,” it notes.

Meantime, the crude tanker fleet continues to lead all vessel segments in terms of scrubber installations by numbers and volume, with nearly a third deploying them. Looking forward, container ships may present a new market, at least until owners are comfortable with the price and availability of low-emission fuels. According to BIMCO, over 70% of box-ship newbuilds could be delivered with scrubbers in the future.

“The higher the VLSFO premium, the more attractive the scrubber”

Yet for owners such as World Direct Shipping, the choice is less about the Global Scrubber Spread and more about the fuel. “Although the present differential favours using scrubbers, the primary reason for selecting them is the comfort in using HFO as a known and reliable fuel,” the group explained late last year as the needle was moving down. “This move [to convert Queen B III] allows World Direct Shipping to continue using HFO, while meeting the strict IMO/Marpol regulations and safeguarding the environment.”

Advancing technology

Meantime, the technology of scrubbers continues to advance. According to CR Ocean Engineering, its multi-stream scrubber removes about five tonnes per day of sulphur dioxide from the combined exhaust of the main engine and three auxiliary engines. And soon the group expects to unveil a more advanced solution, in the form of a module that reduces fine particles, black carbon and carbon dioxide and which can be bolted onto new or existing scrubber systems.

And Alfa Laval has added a data-driven tool to its tried and tested PureSOx Connect scrubber, first sold in 2009. The cloud-based system is designed to make compliance reporting easier while monitoring the functioning of the scrubber.

In a breakthrough for TECO’s Future Funnel, an undisclosed European shipowner has signed a Nrk5.5M [US$526,000] contract with the Norwegian manufacturer, its first, that will see the technology in place in Q2 2023. The funnel is designed for current and future regulations in terms of particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and black carbon.

In another promising development, Value Maritime’s Filtree scrubber and carbon capture system will be installed on Nordic’s newbuild container vessels, operated by BG Freight Line. Already running on over 20 vessels, according to Filtree, the system captures up to 40% of CO2 emissions, with the potential of hitting 90% or more. The carbon is captured in a special chemical, stored in a battery onboard, pumped out ashore and sold to end users, such as the agricultural industry and producers of synthetic fuel. Currently, more than 200 tonnes of CO2 can be stored in a single voyage.

In March, class society ABS approved the Filtree system in principle and sees it as a technology of the future.

Although the extraction and storage of carbon onboard uses a significant amount of extra fuel, proponents of the concept say the sale of the carbon offsets the higher cost. Eastern Pacific Shipping is another line that has taken the plunge. With 200 vessels across containers, dry bulker and tankers, Singapore’s Eastern Pacific installed a Filtree system onboard Pacific Cobalt, a 49,700-dwt tanker. The job was done in Rotterdam in mid-February in a 17-day operation.

This is a project that will be closely watched as the industry weighs up the relative merits of scrubbers and compliant fuels, particularly as rules continue to tighten. For Eastern Pacific chief executive Cyril Ducau, the attraction is instant compliance. “The result is an immediate carbon emission reduction, while removing the need to wait for the development and rationalisation of alternative green fuel infrastructure,” he said in a statement.