News / Scrubber fittings plummet as cost advantage is mitigated by low fuel price

Although now nearly a quarter of the world’s containership fleet by capacity is fitted with exhaust gas cleaning scrubber technology, new retrofit orders for the technology are “almost zero”, according to a leading manufacturer.

During a Q2 results presentation last Friday, Wartsila CEO Jaako Eskola said: “Today the fuel [price] spread between high-sulphur and low-sulphur fuel is so low that the retrofitting order intake in scrubbers is pretty much almost zero.”

Meanwhile, Alphaliner reported that, to date, scrubber retrofitting on 465 containerships ...