DHT Holdings: Scrubbers not ‘long-term solution’

The use of scrubbers to meet upcoming 2020 sulphur regulations is not a viable solution, says both Co-CEOs of independent crude oil tanker company DHT Holdings.

“I think fundamentally we don’t think scrubbers is a long-term solution due to the loss of regulation,” said Svein Moxnes Harfjeld during an earnings call transcribed by Seeking Alpha.

“But of course they could be an opportunity for a ship with an ideal dry dock position before this event maybe you can make a good pay back in a year or two.

“But this is really not high up in our agenda.”

According to Harfjeld, the company is looking at the installation cost of scrubbers and more.

“But we expect the market really to consume compliant fuel and we understand from some of the larger refiners that they do have that fuel available and — but it will have a price.

“So that’s really a game plan if you like and the cost of this we will have to be borne by the end users.”

Meanwhile, Trygve Munthe points out the company has not seen any other shipping firms “pulling the trigger” to get scrubbers installed on their whole fleet.

“Of course we’ve made our customers aware that we have ships coming with scrubbers, and people are looking at this and studying it. But it still have — almost a couple of years ahead,” he says.

“So we haven't really seen anybody pulling the trigger to make any quick decisions on this with the exception of one customer that one big oil company that we understand are now in the process of taking maybe up to a handful of ships with scrubbers for '19 delivery.”

DHT Holdings currently operates 23 VLCC and two Aframax vessels, with four VLCCs under construction. The company’s total managed deadweight tonne is 8.6 million dwt.

Photo credit: DHT Holdings
Published: 9 February, 2018