Source: Ship & Bunker
December 5th 2016
Future bunker regulations will not make exhaust gas scrubbers irrelevant, but rather, they will “catch up with what scrubbers are already doing now,” Nick Confuorto, President and COO of CR Ocean Engineering (CROE), has told Ship & Bunker.
The comments follow a new report prepared by Barry Rogliano Salles’ (BRS’) Tanker Department which, as Ship & Bunker reported last week, speculated that expected new maritime regulations limiting emissions of NOx and particulate matter (PM) meant “there is little certainty that scrubbers can clean emissions to future compliance levels.”
Confuorto disagrees and says there is “no indication” that scrubbers will become obsolete.
“We are presently removing more sulfur than the present regulations and we are also removing much of the soot and the unburned oil which are not yet regulated,” he said.
“If the future regulations evolve, they will only catch up with what scrubbers are already doing now.”
Another common question over the viability of scrubbers as a compliance solution has been whether suppliers of the technology could cater to demand from vessel owners en masse, but in June EGCSA declared that the marine scrubber industry has “ample scrubber capacity for 2020” and is ready to help shipping comply with the new regulations.