SIMIC

DANISH liner consultancy Sea-Intelligence has new analysis showing that in the container sector alone, US$12 billion has been saved by the use of scrubbers, reports Singapore's Splash 247.

The analysis was calculated by taking the global fuel consumption per day across the entire container sector and making the assumption that if X% of the capacity is fitted with scrubbers then X% of the fuel will be the cheaper IFO380 instead of VLSFO.



(IFO380 is Intermediate Fuel Oil with a maximum viscosity of 380 Centistokes, that is 3.5 per cent sulphur. VLSFO is Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil are fuels with a sulphur content not exceeding 0.50 per cent.)



The consultancy gave January 1, 2020 - the first day of the global sulphur cap coming into force - as the opening date for its study, noting how in 2023 there has been a renewed uptick in the number of vessels being fitted with scrubbers.



The impact of scrubber discharges into the ocean has been the source of much debate. A study published in June from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden focusing on four ports calculated that water discharged from scrubbers accounted for more than 90 per cent of the contaminants found in water samples.



"The results speak for themselves. Stricter regulation of discharge water from scrubbers is crucial to reduce the deterioration of the marine environment," said Anna Lunde Hermansson, a doctoral student at the Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences at Chalmers.



Scrubber water not only takes up the sulphur from a ship's exhaust gases, leading to acidification of the scrubber water, but also other contaminants such as heavy metals and toxic organic compounds get mixed in. For open-loop scrubbers, which form the majority of kits sold around the world, the contaminated scrubber water is then pumped directly into the sea.



The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management and the Swedish Transport Agency have submitted a proposal to the Swedish government to prohibit the discharge of scrubber water into internal waters, joining a host of other countries who have instituted scrubber water discharge bans.



The latest data from Clarksons Research shows more than 5,400 ships - around five of the global merchant fleet - are now kitted out with scrubbers.



While scrubbers have been pilloried repeatedly for their acidic discharges into the water studies from NASA last October suggested the 2020 global sulphur cap had improved atmospheric conditions.



The study from the American space agency found that so-called ship track clouds dropped dramatically in 2020, the first year of the implementation of the fuel regulations that saw sulphur content slashed from 3.5 per cent to 0.5 per cent for most of the global fleet not using scrubbers.