zoomIllustration. Image Courtesy: Pixabay under CC0 Creative Commons license

German container shipping line Hapag-Lloyd has placed an order for ten hybrid ready exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCS) for its Hamburg class vessels.

The scrubbers would be gradually installed to the 13,000 TEU ships during 2019 and 2020, with all of the installations expected to be finished before the end of 2020.

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.

The company opted for the move as a part of its response to the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) upcoming low sulphur regulation, which would limit the sulphur emissions caused by marine fuels to 0.5 percent as of January 1, 2020.

“Using compliant low sulphur 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,” Anthony Firmin, COO of Hapag-Lloyd, said.

Hapag-Lloyd also has 17 new vessels in its fleet, which can be converted to use liquefied natural gas (LNG). The company said it would retrofit one vessel of 15,000 TEU during 2019 – and will then test whether LNG is a suitable alternative to low sulphur fuel.