Hapag Lloyd Sulfur regulation: According to World Maritime News, Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd, said at the last TradeWinds shipowners’ forum this week, that fuel costs will increase significantly due to the application of the OMI maximum sulfur regulation by 2020.
Hapag-Lloyd revealed that he was preparing two pilot projects as a way to prepare for the sulfur limit.
The company is testing scrubbers on two large container vessels and exploring the benefits of LNG as a fuel.
The debugger tests will start operating in early 2019 and, depending on the results, the company may decide to invest a little more in the technology.
Jansen estimates that there will be a small percentage of ships in the world fleet with debuggers installed on board in 2020.
As for LNG, Jansen said today that the company was exploring the reconditioning potential of some of the ships acquired through the merger with United Arab Shipping Company. UASC has a series of seventeen 15,000 TEU vessels that are ready for LNG.
“If the first project turns out to be successful, we can also convert the other 16 vessels into LNG,” Jansen explained.
However, taking into account that the effort requires a significant investment, and the fact that the availability of LNG as fuel is limited, at least until 2020, companies around the world will end up changing to another type of fuel.
