US-listed Safe Bulkers said on Monday it installed its first scrubber and that it is sticking to a plan to do the same on half of its fleet.
The 89,000-dwt bulker Martine (built 2009) became the first Safe Bulkers unit to be equipped with the open-loop, U-type, Alfa Laval PureSOx scrubber, the company said in a statement. Installation took place at the Cosco Guangzhou shipyard.
Safe Bulkers is scheduled to install scrubbers on another 18 vessels this year and on one more in early 2020, all at Cosco shipyards.
They will all be of the same type, ensuring SOx emissions that are equivalent to those of ships running on 0.1%-sulphur fuel.
Safe Bulkers will directly use low-sulphur bunkers on the other half of its fleet, which consists of smaller, more fuel-efficient vessels.
The company has said in earlier announcements it expected a downtime of 32 days for installing a scrubber on its first vessel and of 30 days for the remaining ones.
Safe Bulkers said it would use that time to also install ERMA First Ballast Water Treatment System (BWTS) on its vessels.
Open-loop scrubbers have been criticised for shifting sulphur pollution from the air to the sea through water discharges, and they have been banned in several port areas around the world.
However, proponents of the technology say such restrictions have not impaired the economic case for installing them.
They also expect open-loop scrubbers to get a clean bill of health from the IMO, which has set up a joint group of experts to assess its environmental impact.
