Spliethoff’s Bevrachtingskantoor has secured EUR 110m ($125m) to help finance the retrofitting of scrubbers and ballast water management systems (BWMS).
The finance has been provided by Dutch bank ING and the European Investment Bank (EIB), according to a statement from the European Union.
The loan is part of the ING and EIB EUR 300m Green Shipping partnership signed in 2018, to support sponsors of green and sustainable projects in the maritime transport sector with advantageous financial terms.
The EIB will contribute EUR 49.5m to a EUR 110.4m ING Bank arranged facility to finance the installations on a total of 42 vessels.
Specifically, 17 vessels will be retrofitted with both scrubbers and BWMS, five vessels with scrubbers and 20 vessels with BWMS.
The EIB loan will be supported by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the main pillar of the Investment Plan for Europe, as well as the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
“Our joint programme with ING shows that greening the transport sector makes business sense, other than just being important for the environment,” said EIB Vice-President Vazil Hudak.
“The support from the European Commission helps to make the maritime transport sector easier to finance for the Bank, a good example of cross-European teamwork.”
Michel Fransen, CFO of the Spliethoff Group said: “We have been installing scrubbers on our fleet since 2013 and are very happy with the results so far.
“Scrubbers are a very environmentally friendly solution to comply with the 2020 regulations.
“LNG or hydrogen may have the potential to become even better alternatives in the future, but only in the longer term.”
