The retrofits will start in March 2019 when the first EGCS will be installed to the vessel Hamburg Express at Qingdao Beihai shipyard in China. Hapag-Lloyd is estimating all of the installations to be finished before the end of 2020. The decision was made as a part of Hapag-Lloyd’s response to the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) upcoming low sulfur regulations. The so called IMO 2020 regulation limits the sulfur emissions caused by marine fuels to 0.5% as of 1 January 2020.
“Using compliant low sulfur fuels is the key solution for Hapag-Lloyd. However, we want to make sure we test and make use of all relevant solutions, which is why we decided to also retrofit our Hamburg Class vessels with EGCS,” said Anthony Firmin, COO of Hapag-Lloyd.
Hapag-Lloyd also has 17 new vessels in its fleet, which can be converted to use Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). The company will retrofit one vessel of 15 000 TEU during 2019 – and will then test whether LNG is a suitable alternative to low sulfur fuel.
