Friday 1 March 2019

Dutch ship management firm sets sail with €110m green loan

A ship management company in the Netherlands has been granted a €110 million (£94.5m) loan to install exhaust gas cleaning and ballast water management systems in its vessels.

Spliethoff will use the financing to retrofit 42 vessels from its fleet, which will enable it to be compliant with International Maritime Organisation and EU regulations by significantly reducing emissions of sulphur oxide and particulate matter pollutants.

A total of five vessels will be retrofitted with exhaust gas cleaning systems, 20 vessels with ballast water management systems and 17 vessels will have both technologies installed.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Dutch banking group ING are providing the loan, which is part of their €300 million (£258m) Green Shipping partnership signed last year.

Michel Fransen, CFO of the Spliethoff Group 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.

“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.”