Drewry predicts surge in ship demolitions before 2020 sulphur cap

Drewry expects that more and more containerships will be demolished ahead of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)’s 2020 sulphur cap, reducing the average age of scrapped vessels as the pool of older ships is depleted.

Many older and less-fuel efficient ships will be rendered uneconomic while a growth in fitting exhaust scrubbers may force charter rates down for some ships not fitted with the system, thus swelling the number of demolition candidates.

So far owners have resisted a large scale cull, although it could help alleviate the container market’s over-capacity crisis, with slow progress made toward an increase in the number of containership demolitions.