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South Africa postpones decision on open-loop scrubbers

  • Mercados: Oil products
  • 09/09/20

The South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) has postponed a decision on whether to ban the use of open-loop scrubbers in the country's waters.

Samsa said it intended to decide on the use of open-loop scrubbers in South African waters by June this year, but coronavirus-related restrictions have pushed back the decision to at least December.

According to Samsa, 643 ships made their first port of call in South Africa in July, and 110 of these — or 17pc — had open-loop scrubbers. In April, 11pc of ships calling were equipped with open-loop scrubbers.

Exhaust gas cleaning systems, or scrubbers, allow ships to keep burning 3.5pc sulphur marine fuel oil (HSFO) despite the International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) 0.5pc sulphur cap, which started on 1 January. HSFO is discounted to 0.5pc sulphur fuel oil, resulting in fuel cost savings.

Just over 4,300 ships are equipped, or will be equipped during 2020, with scrubbers, and most of these are open-loop, according to shipping classification society DNV GL.

Open-loop scrubbers use sea water as absorbent while closed-loop, or hybrid systems, use caustic soda or magnesium hydroxide to scrub the exhaust gas.

A number of countries have restrictions on open-loop scrubbers. Marine insurer North lists at least 19 countries that have bans or restrictions on the discharge of wastewater at ports, including the world's biggest bunker destination Singapore.

But port bans on open-loop scrubbers has not significantly affected investments in them. Fuel cost savings are made when sailing and not in ports, where ships might run auxiliary engines on 0.1pc sulphur marine gasoil (MGO), or switch scrubbers to closed-loop mode if they are hybrid-ready.

Earlier in September, the European Parliament's transport and environment committee considered measures which would include banning open-loop scrubbers.

DNV GL has said it believes the IMO may be mulling a change in regulations on open-loop scrubbers, specifically targeting the wastewater they emit, amid the spread of localised restrictions.


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