PRESS RELEASE: Wallenius Wilhelmsen is the latest shipowner to join the Clean Shipping Alliance 2020 (CSA 2020), increasing the organisation’s membership to 35 shipowners operating a combined fleet of almost 2500 vessels.
Other companies to have recently joined the Alliance include Hammonia Reederei, International Seaways, Chandris (Hellas) and Genco Shipping & Trading.
Roger Strevens, Vice President, Global Sustainability, Wallenius Wilhelmsen, said: “The implementation of the IMO 2020 0.5% global sulphur cap is supported by the company, but it does represent a significant challenge for the shipping industry, not least from an anticipated hike in fuel costs and potential availability and quality problems.
“To mitigate the risk and costs associated with these challenges, Wallenius Wilhelmsen will use low sulphur fuels on the majority of its fleet and scrubbers on the rest of its vessels. We join the Clean Shipping Alliance 2020, to help ensure the wider industry and its stakeholders have a sound scientific understanding of the operational and environmental performance of scrubbers.”
The Norwegian/Swedish shipping group, a market leader in ro-ro shipping and vehicle logistics, operates a fleet of about 130 vessels, of which 23 will operate with EGCS by the end of 2021.
Genco Shipping & Trading, another prominent shipowner to join CSA 2020, plans to install scrubbers on 17 Capesize vessels with retrofit options for an additional 15 smaller bulk carriers. The decision follows extensive evaluation and analysis of the environmental impact of the technology.
John Wobensmith, President and CEO Genco Shipping & Trading, said: “As a shipowner that has made the decision to invest in marine exhaust gas treatment systems, we believe it is important to join like-minded shipping companies and support this influential organisation.
“CSA 2020 is committed to providing the industry with empirical and scientific data on the environmental and operational performance of EGCS operating across all ship sectors in the global fleet. This is something we at Genco very much support.”
Ian Adams, Executive Director, CSA 2020, said: “We are delighted to welcome Wallenius Wilhelmsen, Hammonia Reederei, International Seaways, Chandris and Genco to the Alliance. With the addition of these new members to CSA 2020, we can now gather further data on which shipowners, regulators and port authorities can make more informed decisions on how best to comply with the global sulphur cap.”
Other than the 35 CSA 2020 members that have already adopted exhaust gas cleaning as an environmentally responsible means of meeting the global sulphur cap, the Alliance has identified a further 242 ship owning/operating companies with investments in EGCS technology.
