Wallenius Wilhelmsen joins scrubber advocacy group

Roger Strevens, vice president, global sustainability, Wallenius Wilhelmsen, said: “The implementation of the IMO 2020 0.5% global sulphur cap is supported by the company, but it does represent a significant challenge for the shipping industry, not least from an anticipated hike in fuel costs and potential availability and quality problems.

“To mitigate the risk and costs associated with these challenges, Wallenius Wilhelmsen will use low sulphur fuels on the majority of its fleet and scrubbers on the rest of its vessels. We join the Clean Shipping Alliance 2020, to help ensure the wider industry and its stakeholders have a sound scientific understanding of the operational and environmental performance of scrubbers.”

Wallenius Wilhelmsen, a Norwegian/Swedish shipping group specialising in ro-ro and vehicle logistics, operates a fleet of about 130 vessels of which 23 will operate with exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS) by end-2021.

Other companies to have recently joined the alliance include Hammonia Reederei, International Seaways, Chandris (Hellas) and Genco Shipping & Trading.

Read more: Genco secures additional financing for scrubbers

Genco Shipping & Trading, for instance, plans to install scrubbers on 17 capesize vessels with retrofit options for an additional 15 smaller bulk carriers.

Ian Adams, executive director of CSA 2020, said: “With the addition of these new members to CSA 2020, we can now gather further data on which shipowners, regulators and port authorities can make more informed decisions on how best to comply with the global sulphur cap.”

Read more: Shipowners form scrubber advocacy group

Other than the 35 CSA 2020 members that have already adopted exhaust gas cleaning as an environmentally responsible means of meeting the global sulphur cap, the alliance has identified a further 242 ship owning/operating companies with investments in EGCS technology.