The 340-Mile Line of Ships Waiting to Clean Up Their Act
- Ships race to install sulfur scrubbing kit on fuel rule change
- From January 2020, vessels must cut sulfur emissions sharply
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Head to the shipyards of Shanghai, Singapore or Hamburg and you’ll soon find them full to the brim with vessels rushing to clean up their act.
Over the course of this year, about 2,200 ships will install so-called scrubbers that allow them to keep burning more-polluting fuel that will otherwise be banned. Put all of those vessels in a line, and they’d stretch about 340 miles, according to figures from ship-classification company DNV GL. Much of the work is being crammed into the fourth quarter, threatening to drain capacity from the global fleet.