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Shipowners need to plan and budget for 2020 Sulphur cap compliance. Most of vessels on international trade will require some degree of upgrades to their machinery and system. Albion Marine is being busy with preparation of upgrade engineering plans for a number of reputable shipowners.

Regulatory bodies around the world are trying to address the impacts 2020 Sulphur cap would have post implementation. New challenges and issues are emerging as the date is coming closer. With 15 months left to implementation, there is no time now to plan for the installation of Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems to meet the regulations right from January 2020. Most shipowners have no choice but to choose low sulphur fuel oil to comply, hoping the suppliers will deliver.

Some believed that the date of implementation might get delayed while some wanted to see what the ‘competitors’ are going to do. The silence from the refineries and the bunker suppliers did not help either, but it is safe to say that the expected demand of low sulphur fuel will not be matched in 2020.

Considering the time at hand, only a minor percentage of shipowners will have scrubbers installed onboard their vessels by January 2018.

Scrubbers have been termed as ‘outdated technology’ and many articles have concluded that scrubbers might not even be required in the long run. All these conclusions are based on assumptions that the alternate fuels will be made available in abundance within 1-2 years from the date of implementation. It is time for the shipowners to review their strategy and spare a thought to a possibility that scrubbers might be the best solution for next half a decade