Dutch ship management company Spliethoff’s Bevrachtingskantoor is set to receive a €110m loan to retrofit 42 vessels of its fleet with exhaust gas cleaning and ballast water management systems. The loan will be provided by ING and the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The retrofit will enable Spliethoff to be compliant with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and EU regulations to control sulphur oxide and other pollutants from the shipping sector.
Spliethoff’s will retrofit 17 vessels with exhaust gas cleaning and ballast water management systems.
Operating with reduced sulphur oxide (SOx) emissions and particulate matter (PM) pollutants, vessels will prevent the seaborne transfer of invasive species and diseases in ballast water.
Spliethoff Group chief financial officer Michel Fransen said: “We have been installing scrubbers on our fleet since 2013 and are very happy with the results so far. Scrubbers are a very environmentally friendly solution to comply with the 2020 regulations.
“Scrubbers are a very environmentally friendly solution to comply with the 2020 regulations.”
“LNG or hydrogen may have the potential to become even better alternatives in the future, but only in the longer term. The investment in scrubbers also safeguards the interest of our shareholders against uncertainties in fuel availability and pricing.”
The loan from EIB will be supported by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) and the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
As part of the ING and EIB €300m Green Shipping partnership signed last year, the loan will support green and sustainable projects sponsors in the maritime transport sector with advantageous financial terms.
The EIB will contribute €49.5m to ING Bank’s €110.4m arranged facility to finance the installation of the vessel systems.
Press Release Courtesy of Verdict Media Limited.