The days and weeks leading up to IMO 2020 will be "chaotic" as charterers make last-minute choices to fuel their voyages, Scorpio Bulkers president Robert Bugbee has said.
"What we really know is that it's going to be chaos," he said today during a dry bulk sector panel at Capital Link International Shipping Forum in New York City. "Real chaos."
He said the fleets of both Scorpio Bulkers and Scorpio Tankers have options to install scrubbers but charterers will wait until the last minute to decide on whether to use high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) with scrubbers or burn low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO).
"They're not even sure about how they're going to do this," he said.
"The whole thing became a wait-and-see poker at the moment because [LSFO] costs more for the client."
At the same time, refiners do not want to produce an ample supply that needs to be stored at a cost, he said.
"So everybody's going to try to game this ... to the last minute before they start transporting this low-sulphur fuel around the world depending on how many ports there are," he said.
Furthermore, some of the 450 bunkering facilities worldwide may have insufficient supply of HSFO by underestimating the number of scrubber-fitted ships on the way, he said.
"You may have waiting days for some ships waiting for the high-sulphur fuel," he said.
