NYK has said its sole cruiseship – the 50,142-gt Asuka II (built 1990) – is to be fitted with a scrubber system to meet the upcoming IMO 2020 regulations.
The 872-passenger capacity ship, which is operated by NYK Cruises, will undergo a 45-day makeover at Singapore’s Sembcorp Marine.
The ship, the largest Japanese cruise vessel flying the Japanese flag, is due to arrive in Singapore from the middle of January 2020.
Last month, NYK Line confirmed in its full-year results that it will install scrubbers on 55 vessels including ships on order.
TradeWinds had earlier reported that NYK Line had struck a 55-ship deal with several unnamed Chinese repair yards to fit the scrubbers.
NYK, which controls 750 ships, is leveraging its considerable purchasing power to strike a price-competitive, all-inclusive bulker deal with the unnamed Chinese yards at a time when dry-dock space is scarce.
The deal mostly involves fitting scrubbers to its capesizes and VLOCs, including owned ships or those controlled through long-term charters by NYK, out of its fleet of 400 bulkers.
The move hedges the 2020 risk by committing some of the bulker fleet to using high-sulphur fuel and scrubbers, with the rest using low-sulphur bunkers.
NYK has already reportedly booked low-sulphur fuel oil through the fuel futures market ahead of the IMO 2020 January deadline.
In its full-year results NYK said it already carried out trials of low Sulphur fuels on one of its pure car carriers ahead of the 1 January 2020 deadline.
It also confirmed that it purchased about 40% of the monthly required volume of low Sulphur oil in advance in Singapore.
