Hapag-Lloyd invests in scrubbers ahead of 2020

Photo: Hapag-Lloyd

The shipping line will retrofit a total of 10 of its 13k TEU-big Hamburg class carriers with hybrid ready exhaust gas cleaning systems (ECGS).

Hamburg Express will be the first to receive the new machinery, which will be installed at the Qingdao Beihai shipyard in March 2019. The retrofitting programme is scheduled for completion by end-2020.

The investment follows the decision of the International Maritime Organization to lower worldwide the permissible level of sulphur in ship fuel from current 3.5% to 0.5% as of 1 January 2020 (excl. the 0.1% Sulphur Emission Control Areas that are already in place).

"Using compliant low sulphur fuels is the key solution for Hapag-Lloyd. However, we want to make sure we test and make use of all relevant solutions, which is why we decided to also retrofit our Hamburg Class vessels with EGCS," Anthony Firmin, COO, Hapag-Lloyd, said.

In addition, Hapag-Lloyd will convert next year one of its 15k TEU-big ships to run on liquefied natural gas in order to also assess this method of complying with the 0.5% cap.