Marine equipment supplier PANASIA weathers recession with cutting-edge technology  

Developed own “scrubber” to reduce SOx; signed supply contract for 11 vessels this year alone

- Global move towards tighter environmental regulations

- Rising expectation for possibly more contract awards

Recently, although the shipbuilding industry has started showing signs of recovery, it is still suffering the impact of the downturn. There is, however, one marine equipment supplier doing rather remarkably well with its cutting-edge technologies despite the circumstances.

Following a series of successful bids for scrubber projects, PANASIA, a marine equipment supplier headquartered in Gangseo-gu, Busan, has become the object of its competitors’ envy. A scrubber is a marine sulfur oxide (SOx) removal system aimed at meeting the environmental regulations that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) began to implement in 2020. The scrubber uses seawater to remove sulfur oxides present in ship exhaust gases

On the 12th, PANASIA announced that it signed a contract for the delivery of de-SOx scrubber systems for four tankers being built by a European shipowner at STX Offshore & Shipbuilding Co., LTD. The scrubbers will be shipped sequentially during the second half of the year. Since its first delivery of scrubbers to Woomin Shipping, a South Korean shipowner last February, PANASIA has won contracts for the delivery of scrubbers for a total of 11 vessels to this day.

The European shipowner is said to have express satisfaction with PANASIA’s scrubbing technology during the bidding process. To prepare for the tightening of global environmental regulations, PANASIA began to develop its own scrubbers in 2012 by revamping the exhaust gas cleaning technology used in existing nitric oxide (NOx) reduction systems the company had delivered to offshore plants and ships. PANASIA is expected to get more orders since the shipowner is planning to deploy more scrubbers for environmentally friendly fleet management.

Under the IMO’s current regulations, all ships operating around the world are required to reduce the level of sulfur for their fuel oil from 3.5% to 0.5% or less. Also, in designated emission control areas (ECAs), the sulfur limit is 0.1% or less. Recently, in South Korea, too, exhaust gas emissions from ships have been singled out as one of the leading causes of particulate matter. Consequently, there is an ongoing debate about the designation of areas, including the Port of Busan, as ECAs.

To cope with the new regulations, shipowners have started installing scrubbers. Scrubbers effectively reduce sulfur levels while using existing marine fuel oil (HFO). While it is possible to use fuel oil with lower sulfur content, it is costly for longer voyage times and ultimately not economically viable.

Alternatively, ships can use dedicated liquid natural gas (LNG) engines, but there is not enough well-developed infrastructure for the delivery of LNG at ports around the world. A rep for PANASIA revealed, “We plan on building a marine satellite control system (Pan-MSCS) by combining internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies as long as that’s what our customers want. Then we will provide monitoring and fault detection services that meet customer needs in preparing for environmental inspections at ports around the world.”