Earlier this week, Clarksons Platou Securities opined that the fall in the spread between very low-sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) and high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) to $75 “is clearly keeping any thoughts of a 'second wave' of scrubber installations at bay, although there remains a meaningful gain to be captured for ships with scrubbers on board”.

It led scrubber lobby group the Clean Shipping Alliance to retort: “The narrowing of fuel prices should not be a deterrent to the wider take-up of marine exhaust gas cleaning systems.”