The former Feen Marine Scrubbers is looking to secure a place in the top league of scrubber manufacturers and has the backing of some of shipping’s top names.
Navig8 Group principals Nicolas Busch and Gary Brocklesby emerged this week as the new majority shareholders of rebranded FMSI, while John Fredriksen’s Frontline boosted its stake in the company to 28.9%, up from 20%.
Busch, who is also stepping in as interim chief executive, discussed the latest initiative in an exclusive statement to TradeWinds this week.
Busch noted that the company had started in 2017 as a small-scale supplier under the direction of Bjornar Feen, who has agreed to sell his shares and leave the outfit.
“As part of the rapid expansion of the company, the majority shareholders have invested significantly in the business to enable a substantial increase in capacity and maximise the opportunities in the market,” Busch said.
'Significant market player'
“This move marks a departure — key from the perspective of the remaining majority shareholders — from the small-scale production of the past towards becoming a significant market player with capacity at a time when competitors are fully booked. At this crossroads in the business’ future, it was mutually decided that there would be a parting of ways.”
Through their leadership of Navig8, Busch and Brocklesby are already active as the world’s biggest commercial tanker managers through Navig8 pools. They also own vessels through Navig8 Chemical Tankers and Navig8 Product 2020.
Navig8 also supplies bunker fuels through its Integr8 Fuels subsidiary.
While FMSI is not a Navig8 business as such, Busch and Brocklesby are now heavily invested in its success.
Former Wartsila executive Terje Bjormemo is heading FMSI’s global sales team.
“We thank our shareholders for placing confidence in our potential,” Bjormemo said. “This agreement will propel FMSI into an era of considerable growth.”
Navig8 has committed to scrubbers for all 16 of its newbuildings in the Navig8 Product 2020 programme, and had been working with Feen to obtain them. Frontline has been another Feen customer.
Busch said the development of FMSI’s new 40,000-square-metre plant in Batam, Indonesia, will allow a five-fold rise in production.
“The new facility has four production lines, each able to produce a scrubber a day, but FMSI will aim to limit the increase in production to 40 to 60 units per month in the second half of 2019,” Busch said. “The current orderbook of about 160 [scrubber] systems is spread over the next 12 months, so there is plenty of additional capacity.”
That capacity should be available from the second quarter.
No moving parts
FMSI scrubbers have no moving parts and can be operated manually by crew if necessary.
A total of 18 units are fully commissioned and the number will reach 28 by the end of January, Busch said.
FMSI specialises in open-loop scrubbers — recently banned by the port of Singapore, Belgium, some US states and China's transport ministry — and hybrids that can be converted to closed-loop.
“We expect our open-loop scrubbers will burn compliant fuels within port limits in any event but, given the low proportion of time most vessels spend steaming inside port limits, the economic implications are negligible,” Busch said. “In addition, our hybrid-ready design has been made to be future-proof in case regulations should be changed in 2022 and 2023.”
