By Stuart Burns
The International Maritime Organization's ((IMO)) January 1, 2020, deadline for shipping companies to use low-sulfur (0.5% max) fuel has been on and off in the news for months, but without much interest from those outside the industry or the environmental organizations that lobbied for its introduction.
But now, with the deadline just months away, the implications are becoming more apparent. Shipping lines are scrambling to fit scrubbers, but some are finding they have left it too late.
It currently takes some six weeks to retrofit a scrubber. With the surge