Marine exhaust gas cleaning: Optimizing maintenance for SOx scrubbers

When a SOx scrubber is the strategy for meeting marine emission limits – whether those of the 2020 global sulphur cap or the stricter limits in Emission Control Areas (ECAs) – it becomes key to the vessel’s compliance and economy. Although the technology, design and quality of the scrubber are vital to its success, the way it is operated and maintained will have a decisive impact on its performance during its lifetime. With this in mind, it is crucial to adopt the right scrubber maintenance strategy and to choose the right service provider to implement and safeguard it. This will result in the most reliable operation and optimized performance, which in turn will secure compliance, keep costs to a minimum and make them predictable. The issues and considerations involved are presented briefly in this paper.