IBIA: Low Sulphur Fuel Best Solution for Global Cap

Low sulphur fuel oil is believed to be the best solution for compliance with the 0.50% sulphur limit in 2020, findings released by the International Bunker Industry Association (IBIA) show.

Half of respondents to polls on the best compliance option, put to delegates at IBIA’s Annual Convention in Singapore in November, said that low sulphur fuel oil will be the best solution, while LNG scored a much higher share of votes with 42 percent, compared to abatement technologies, with 8 percent of the votes.

Furthermore, few seem to think that as much as 1,000 vessels will be fitted with scrubbers before 2020 with most thinking it will be the mid-2020s before that number is reached.

According to the speakers from BP, ExxonMobil and Marine and Energy Consulting at the Convention, the current anticipation is that LNG will play a much smaller role than scrubbers in 2020, and that scrubber uptake will accelerate much quicker to make use of high sulphur fuel oil with scrubbers a much bigger share of the market in 2025 than LNG.

Many of the delegates at IBIA’s Annual Convention, meanwhile, seemed to have doubts about how quickly scrubbers will take off and selected LNG as the second most ideal solution in 2020 and beyond.

“Low sulphur fuel oil was the clear winner. It is nevertheless interesting how much opinion seems stacked in favour of LNG over scrubbers,” IBIA concluded.