ING and EIB fund Spliethoff green retrofit

The €110m loan will enable Spliethoff to be compliant with International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and EU environmental regulations and is supported by the European Fund for Strategic Investments, the main pillar of the Investment Plan for Europe,as well as the “Connecting Europe Facility”.

EIB’s vice-president, Vazil Hudak, said that the ‘greening the transport sector’ makes sound business sense as well as being important for the environment whilst Stephen Fewster, globalhead of ING Shipping said that sustainability is an important strategic priority for ING.

Michel Fransen, chief finance officer of the Spliethoff Group agreed. “We have been installing scrubbers on our fleet since 2013 and are very happy with the results so far,” he said.

“Scrubbers are a very environmentally friendly solution to comply with the 2020 regulations. LNG or hydrogen may have the potential to become even better alternatives in the future, but only in the longer term. The investment in scrubbers also safeguards the interest of our shareholders against uncertainties in fuel availability and pricing.”

The loan is part of the ING and EIB €300m Green Shipping partnership signed in 2018 to support sponsors of green and sustainable projects in the maritime transport sector with advantageous financial terms.

The funding enables 17 vessels to be retrofitted with both exhaust gas cleaning systems and ballast water management systems, five vessels with exhaust gas cleaning systems and 20 vessels with ballast water management systems.