Newport Shipping Group has bought 100 exhaust gas scrubbers with options for another 100 units from China's Weihai Puyi Marine Environmental Technology (Puyier).
Bulk purchase of the IMO 2020 devices aims to safeguard shipowners against price hikes or production bottlenecks as demand increases, the London-based ship repairer said.
“Together with our existing global network of drydocks, we can now offer the marine industry its first-ever turnkey scrubber retrofit solution," Newport Shipping chief executive Erol Sarikaya said.
"We are providing shipowners with a true one-stop-shop for equipment procurement, engineering, guaranteed retrofit slots, and attractive deferred payment plans covering up to 60% of the total contract cover over 18-months subsequent to retrofit completion."
Newport Shipping's announcement comes soon after several shipowners have placed scrubber orders, including International Seaways, Maersk, Star Bulk Carriers, Safe Bulk Carriers and others.
Sarikaya said Newport Shipping has secured an eight-month lead-time for scrubbers ordered in October, guaranteeing retrofits will be done well before the IMO 2020 deadline.
Newport Shipping said Puyier was chosen as the scrubber supplier because of its 10-year track record in exhaust gas cleaning technology.
“With Newport’s bulk purchase of 100+100 scrubbers we are able to pass on any savings to the shipowner while locking in favourable delivery slots," Puyier general manager Ryan Gao said.
"With major scrubber manufacturers offering lead-times of between 16 to 20 months, our established design, supply chain and manufacturing base provide timely 8-month deliveries for Newport customers.”
Marine engineering companies Harris Pye and Goltens will provide engineering services, including 3-D scanning , design, prefabrication and mobile teams for in-service retrofits.
Goltens VP Sandeep Seth said: “The market is gathering pace as more and more shipowners opt for the scrubber solution as the way to comply with the global sulphur cap rule," Goltens vice president Sandeep Seth said.
Harris-Pye chief operating officer Chris David said shipowners are seeing that exhaust cleaning "makes more commercial sense due to the clear payback."
