1. With just a few short months to go until the deadline for the 2020 sulphur cap, the number of vessels that have installed a scrubber remains low, although among the largest vessels that consume the most fuel - and therefore, stand to gain the most from being able to burn low-cost heavy fuel oil - they have made more of an impact. If we take a snapshot of the global fleet as i was on 1 March 2019, we can see that although the number of vessels already fitted with a scrubber was just 543, more than 1,000 ships were awaiting retrofitting, with several hundred being constructed with a scrubber, taking the total to 2,000 vessels. Although not insignificant, compared with the global fleet this number remains low, with most shipowners opting for alternative fuel options. How this figure will develop in the coming years will largely depend on the spread between low-sulphur and high-sulphur fuels, and possibly compliance levels.
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