Songa Container Orders Scrubbers for Its Entire Fleet

Norwegian feeder owner Songa Container has decided to equip its entire fleet with exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers).

In its fourth quarter of 2018 financial report, the company said it signed a scrubber installation contract in October 2018 for all 15 vessels in the fleet. The installations are due to take place within the course of 2019 and first quarter 2020.

However, in January 2019, the company cancelled the installation of a scrubber on the Songa Antofagasta due to a potential sale of the vessel.

Going forward, Songa Container said that much of its focus will be on the CAPEX program related to the retrofit of scrubbers.

“The strategy of installing scrubbers will enable the company to provide a technically proven, environmentally beneficial, commercially attractive and risk mitigating fleet of container vessels to the liner operators for their future business development.”

“Due to the very low penetration of scrubber-fitted container vessels in the feeder segment,” the company expects to have a comparative advantage on its fleet.

“Whilst there are still many uncertainties concerning the consequences surrounding the implementation of the IMO2020 regulation, the company believes that taking a position to the IMO2020 regulation by retrofitting scrubbers in a worst case scenario, represents an opportunity to maximize its fleet utilization,” Songa Container explained.