Oslo-listed MPC Container Ships (MPCC) may fit scrubbers to 55 ships in its 69-vessel fleet in a potentially big change of tack.
The company said it had bought five exhaust gas cleaning systems to be retrofitted before 1 January to meet IMO 2020 rules.
The deal includes options to buy kits for 50 more boxships, allowing for further installations in both 2019 and early 2020.
"The company will be carefully evaluating further scrubber installations, on a vessel by vessel basis, and exercise further options in due course," it said.
MPCC said it has been seeing "significant interest from charterers for scrubber-fitted vessels and is in well-advanced negotiations with charterers for mid- to longer-term charter parties at favourable rates that are expected to yield attractive returns."
Simultaneously, it is evaluating additional charters to take advantage of the "high optionality" of its scrubber agreements.
The programme will be financed with cash and available debt.
CEO Constantin Baack said: "Having conducted thorough analyses on the subject, we are excited about the opportunity to retrofit selected vessels with scrubbers as an economically attractive alternative of complying with the 2020 sulphur regulations.
"Moreover, the option to equip a larger portion of our fleet with scrubbers gives MPC Container Ships the strategic flexibility to adapt to new market environments as we deem fit."
In September, the world's biggest feedership owner said most of its vessels would use low-sulphur fuel oil, largely eschewing scrubbers.
