To scrub or not to scrub? That was the dominant question at last week’s Association of Ship Brokers & Agents (ASBA) annual cargo conference in Miami Beach, as it has been at many other industry forums this year.

But amid all the talk about price spreads between high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) and low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO), open-loop scrubbers versus closed-loop technology, one delegate had a more basic question about the implementation of the IMO's emissions standard on 1 January 2020.