Finnish shipping technology group Wartsila is gearing up for a surge in scrubber orders.
The company said in its second quarter report that it is seeing increased demand for exhaust gas cleaning solutions in both the newbuilding and retrofit markets ahead of the global sulphur regulations entering into force in 2020.
Roger Holm, president of Wartsila Marine Solutions, told TradeWinds: "We use a lot of suppliers in our supply chain and we are ramping up capacity."
TradeWinds has reported that owners face a long queue for scrubbers in order to be ready for the 2020 low sulphur regime.
Holm said delivery times vary: "There is no one size fits all - it depends on the engineering needed and how standardised you can make it."
Pierpaolo Barbone, president of Wartsila Services, said lead-in times for retrofitting depend on when slots can be secured in yards, and whether owners want to combine this with a maintenance drydocking.
Last week, Wartsila announced a EUR 170m ($198m) deal to outfit a boxship fleet with scrubbers.
The unnamed European line has ordered hybrid exhaust gas cleaning equipment and retrofit services.
Sources told TradeWinds the owner was MSC, but Holm and Barbone said they could not reveal the name behind the contract.
Cruise and LNG carriers are key
Holm said overall orders in the cruiseship sector have continued to be strong.
"We don't see a change in that," he added.
Barbone said there had been some signs of improvement in containerships too.
And he added: "The bleeding has stopped in oil and gas so the next months will tell."
Holm said he was pleased with the second quarter result because development is heading in the right direction with a good orderbook and vessel contracting increasing.
And there were more gas carrier orders in the first half than in the whole of 2017.
The net profit was up at EUR 75m ($87m) from EUR 73m in 2017.
Order intake increased 14% to EUR 1.55bn, while revenue fell 3% to EUR 1.24bn.
Wartsila’s current order book for 2018 deliveries is EUR 2.33bn, up from EUR 2.08bn.
Marine Solutions’ second quarter order intake totalled EUR 409m, up 13%.
