The year has started with the announcement of a full main and auxiliary engine scrubber order for a Solvang new build LPG Carrier. Lloyds list reports that the vessel will be delivered in 2013.
This news rather undermines the argument that scrubber systems are not commercially available. As we have consistently argued in this blog and more generally, the supply market will respond to demand. As orders come the capacity to meet them follows. Suppliers of scrubbing systems want to work with ship owners and the delivery of equipment in 2013 allows them to work together to bed systems in and have them approved and functioning to designed and legislated performance levels in good time for the 2015 ECA implementation. Clearly if every ship owner operating in the ECA decided now to place orders for delivery prior to 2015 there would undoubtedly be a squeeze on supply capacity, not to mention ship yard and dry dock space, but no one is suggesting that scrubbing will suit everyone. We ourselves have been working very hard to reduce the level of bespoke fabrication in our systems and position the technology to be as scalable as possible to facilitate sensible material lead times and place us in a position to respond effectively to a swell in demand.
In terms of lead time it will often be the class approval of installations and the dry dock periods which define the project timescales of scrubber installations. The lengthening of periods between dry docks means that ships not fitted prior to 2015, but which have dry docked in say 2013 or 2014 may have to bear the pain of burning very expensive gasoil for quite a few years. Given that even on ships with fairly modest fuel consumption this can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars per month the implications are clear.
There has been a perception that few operators really wanted to be seen as early adopters but perhaps that point has been passed. For vessels dry docking in 2013 and 2014 installations can be achieved whilst still allowing systems to be approved in good time and the cost of capital covered by the differential between high and low sulphur fuel oil. Then in 2015 the differential between fuel oil and gasoil triggers the quick payback and significant competitive advantage. These are not so much early adopters as timely adopters!
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