Grimaldi attacks oil refineries over ‘unjustified’ low sulphur bunker price increase

Emanuele Grimaldi, CEO of Grimaldi Group and vice president of the International Chamber of Shipping, speaking at the Euromed Convention held in Sicily last week, attacked oil refineries for what he considers “an unjustified price increase expected for the new low sulphur bunker”.

Taking about green shipping and the dream to have in the future a zero-emission ship, the Naples-based shipowner said: “Today in the port of Rotterdam the HFO stands at $250 per ton but the future price of the low sulphur fuel I have heard that will be $500 per ton. A 100% increase is something not justified, that’s not the price the refineries will pay to produce new 0.1% sulphur bunker fuel.”

Grimaldi spoke of “speculation” from the suppliers and also added: “Refineries are going to make an enormous amount of money in the future.”

The Italian shipping group will be only partially impacted by that high prices since it is currently completing a programme of fitting 100 vessels, out of its 130-ship fleet, with scrubbers. The remaining ships will switch to cleaner distillate fuels when worldwide low sulphur regulations kick in January 1 2020.

As for the next new orders for cargo ships Gianluca Grimaldi, co-CEO in charge for the deep sea routes, told Splash: “The program for a new series of six con-ros has been slightly postponed but we want to complete the project next year and then launching the tender in order to find the shipyard and have those new ships at sea in five years’ time.”