Scrubbers as a measure to comply with the sulphur cap in 2020 would be a quick fix, according to Wartsila’s director of exhaust gas cleaning, Sigurd Jenssen, and more drastic measures are needed.
Scrubbers allows ships to continue using high-sulphur fuel oil, however, Wartsila’s director of exhaust gas cleaning, Sigurd Jenssen, said that this solution will not guarantee compliance with the deadline, speaking to Reuters.
Mr. Jenssen said that equipping 2,000-3,000 ships with scrubbers by 2020 can be done. But with a global fleet of about 60,000 vessels, many of them will have to use cleaner fuels.
As IEA noted last week, there is not enough investment in scrubbers and it is worried about the availability of low-sulphur marine fuel.
Moreover, Mr. Jenssen said to Reuters that 60% of new ships in Korea, have scrubbers and the retrofitting of existing vessels is increasing with a fast pace.
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However, the price in a problem, as the cost ranges between 1 million euros and 5 million euros or the equipment alone. Moreover, another problem would be the time. Sigurd Jenssen noted that fitting a scrubber can last to 20 days but an engineering plan is also needed. The fitting along with the plan is a process that can take up to a year.
