CRUISE SHIPPING • THE MARKET REPORTONE LNG-FUELED CRUISE SHIP IS IN OPERATION WTH 31 ON ORDER FROM OPERATORS IN-CLUDING CARNIVAL, DISNEY CRUISE LINE, ROYAL CARIBBEAN INTERNATIONAL AND MSC.STEVE ESAU, GENERAL MANAGER OF THE SEA/LNG CONSORTIUMContinued from page 29have been installing advanced air quality systems on our ships. These efforts are mitigating much of the impact from the ECA requirements. Given the installa-tion schedule, we expect to use a greater percentage of low sulfur fuel in 2020, which may increase our fuel costs.” In late 2018, Carnival was a founding mem-ber of Clean Shipping Association 2020, an industry group promoting the use of scrubbers generally, against a backdrop of concerns about open loop scrubbers in particular. A new cruise entrant, Virgin Voyage, will deploy “hybrid” scrubbers from Wärtsilä on its three 2,770 passenge ves-sels, the ? rst dubbed Scarlet Lady and under construction at Fincantieri Sestri (near Genoa where it was ? oated out in early Februrary 2019). Delivery is scheduled for 2020.With new operators come new tem-plates for business relationships with vendors and equipment providers. The scrubbers, and other onboard systems (including catalytic converters) are cov-ered under a long-term maintenance agreement between Wärtsilä and Virgin Voyages, where the vendor is incentiv-ized in providing economical and sus-tainable operations. Recently, LNG has predominated where operators have gone to alternative fuels. Steve Esau, General Manager of the Sea/LNG consortium, told Maritime Reporter, “…One LNG-fueled cruise ship is in operation (AIDAnova- oper-ated by AIDA, a Carnival brand) with 31 on order from operators including Car-nival, Disney Cruise Line, Royal Carib-bean International and MSC Cruises.” Peter Keller, Sea/LNG’s Chairman, noted in a blog posting that AIDANova had entered service in December 2018 . The 6,600-passenger vessel was deliv-ered from Meyer Werft- Papenburg, with a pair of sisters to follow in 2021 and 2023. Its four 15,440-kW MaK M46DF engines are from Caterpillar. At least one cruise giant has been thinking beyond LNG; Royal Caribbean has suggested that its new LNG-pow-ered Icon-class vessels (around 200,000 gross tons), with the ? rst to be delivered in 2022, will see its LNG fuel supple-mented by hydrogen fuel cells. www.marinelink.com 31MR #3 (26-33).indd 31 3/8/2019 2:06:13 PM