Eagle Bulk Shipping may soon have almost its entire fleet of 48 drybulk ships fitted with exhaust gas scrubbers.
The Gary Vogel-led company announced after today's close that it entered into a series of agreements to buy up to 37 exhaust gas cleaning systems for at-sea retrofit onto current vessels.
The agreements consist of firm orders for 19 scrubbers and up to an additional 18 units, at the company's option, the Stamford, Connecticut-based owner said.
The projected cost, including installation, is about $2m per scrubber system.
Eagle Bulk plans to retrofit 19 ships before the IMO 2020 deadline requiring ship exhaust sulphur content to lower to 0.5% from 3.5%.
The company has partnered with an unnamed global engineering firm to install a "significant amount" of the scrubbers while the ships are at sea to reduce off-hire time.
"Today's announcement is the culmination of significant work and analysis, and we are excited to be able to position ourselves to not only meet the forthcoming sulphur emission regulations, but also to realize the economic advantage we believe scrubbers will provide," chief executive Vogel said.
"Additionally, we are confident that Eagle Bulk's active owner-operator model will ensure that we can effectively maximize the returns on this investment and technology."
