John C. Wobensmith, ceo of Genco, said the initiative has now enabled the company to comply with IMO 2020 regulations that limit sulphur emissions from ships to 0.5% down from 3.5% on a global basis.
“The execution of our scrubber program marks an important step for Genco in what was the busiest drydocking period in company history,” Wobensmith said.
“Specifically, given the timely nature of our scrubber retrofits on our capesize vessels, we have been able to capture the differentials between compliant and high sulphur fuel so far in the early stages of compliance, significantly de-risking the initial investment,” he said.
Genco has no more scheduled drydockings for its capesize vessels for the rest of 2020, and it now plans to maximise fleet-wide utilisation for these scrubber-fitted vessels while re-implementing an active chartering approach.
“As such, we strategically repositioned select capesize vessels after the completion of their scrubber installations towards the Atlantic Basin during the end of 2019 to better capture market fundamentals,” Wobensmith said.
In addition to the installation of scrubbers on the 17 capesizes, the balance of Genco’s fleet consisting of minor bulk vessels is consuming ultra-low sulphur compliant fuel.
As at 29 January, Genco’s fleet consisted of 17 capesizes, one panama, six ultramaxes, 20 supramaxes and 11 handysizes.
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