Hi5? More like Lo5
For a significant minority of people, the way of dealing with the IMO’s new sulphur regulation was to use scrubbers to make sure they fulfilled the requirements. This meant that they could use the cheaper High Sulphur Fuel Oil (HSFO) and yet still be compliant with the regulation.
At the start of the year they must have seemed like absolute Kings. $300+ in their pockets per tonne compared to non-scrubber-fitted vessels, hailed as Gods with deistic forecasting powers. However, like starting the week back at work after a festival, the high doesn’t last forever. This ‘scrubber spread’ has collapsed, with March levels currently at around $113 for Rotterdam and $115 for Singapore. The spread has lost around 65% of its value in just two months.
Many of these divine predictors will now be staring-wide eyed at their credit bill for scrubber installations with very much reduced smiles this week. This will be especially true if they did not hedge in the Hi5 levels in January. They really did miss a trick if not.