Emanuele Lauro’s two public shipping companies have revealed a combined $122m investment in scrubbers.
Scorpio Bulkers is investing $42.4m in the exhaust cleaning systems and sibling Scorpio Tankers a further $79.6m, it was announced today.
The New York-listed companies this summer they would fit scrubbers on a number of vessels in an initiative that executives said would run to more than 100 ships.
Today Scorpio Bulkers said 18 of its ships would have the equipment installed in 2019, with a further 10 to be fitted in 2020.
Scorpio has previously said scrubbers would be fitted on substantially all of its owned and finance leased kamsarmax and ultramax vessels between the second quarter of 2019 and the third quarter of 2020.
Scorpio Bulkers has a fleet of 57 vessels on the water, including 19 kamsarmaxes and 37 ultramaxes.
Separately, Scorpio Tankers revealed its own project to place scrubbers on 42 vessels in 2019 and an extra 10 in 2020.
Both companies said the scrubbers would be of "hybrid-ready" design, which allows them to be upgraded to a closed loop configuration at a future date.
Scorpio Tankers has the option to purchase a further 28 scrubbers, while Scorpio Bulkers holds options for 18 vessels.
Cameron Mackey, chief operating officer of both Monaco shipowners, said on Scorpio Bulkers' third quarter conference call in October the decision to fit scrubbers came after careful analysis of the risks and potential benefits.
“Our initial posture of patience or wait and see opens up valuable optionality and additional information on the decision to a point. In this regard, we’re happy to be fast followers rather than a first mover," he said.
Mackey noted that the technology carried the risk of changing regulation and the availability of different fuels, however, a large slice of the company’s fleet is set for dry docks in 2019 and 2020.
“The potential impact of 2020 given that the vast majority of the world’s fleet will not be initially fitted with scrubbers leads us to believe that slow streaming, market dislocations and enhanced levels of scrapping will further tighten supply and those in the best position to benefit from these favorable conditions will be modern fuel efficient vessels equipped with scrubbers,” he reasoned.
