Less Expensive Heavy Fuel Oil News

“Scrubbers were installed on 399 ships in 2022, a fall of 24% y/y, and currently 13% of bulker, container, and tanker ships have a scrubber installed. Despite the slowing rate of installations, the share of ships with a scrubber is set to increase in coming years as 17% of ships in the shipyards’ order books are expected to have a scrubber installed,” says Niels Rasmussen, Chief Shipping Analyst at BIMCO.Since January 1, 2020, ships have had to use ultra or low sulphur fuel (eg ULSFO or VLSFO) to comply with limits for sulphur emissions.

Ultrapetrol Ltd., a Bahamas-based shipping company, is scheduled to go public next week with an initial public offering of 12.5 million shares. Shares are expected to price between $13 and $15 per share and trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol "ULTR." Assuming shares price in the middle of that range, the company expects to raise net proceeds of about $160.2 million. The company plans to use most of the proceeds to repay debt, although Ultrapetrol said it earmarked $20 million to help fund construction of two platform supply vessels being built in Brazil. It plans to use another $17.3 million for general corporate purposes. Ultrapetrol operates four business segments: river, offshore supply, ocean and passenger.