---

Hyundai Heavy Industries' (HHI) has confirmed that its recently spun-off marine services company, Hyundai Global Services (HGS), has entered the "eco-friendly ship business" via the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with South Korean firm KSS Line.

Under the terms of the agreement, both companies will collaborate to retrofit KSS Line-owned medium-sized liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers with exhaust gas cleaning systems, also known as scrubbers.

The 84,000-cubic-metre (cbm) LPG carrier Gas Star is set to be the first of KSS Line's fleet to be retrofitted with an exhaust gas cleaning system.

By fitting its ships with scrubbers, KSS Line will be able to continue using cheaper bunker fuel with a higher sulphur content - and thus reduce bunker costs - when the IMO's 0.5 percent global sulphur cap is implemented in 2020.

HHI says that from this month, the two project partners will be operating a task force team to conduct basic engineering of the scrubber system. Engineering work is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

KSS Line will also be using voyage data collected from the retrofitted ships to analyze fuel savings and conduct a feasibility study of the joint business.

Commenting on the size of the exhaust gas cleaning system market, HHI said: "It is forecast that more than 15,000 ships will have the system onboard and the global market to grow worth about USD 1 billion by 2020."

In addition to the scrubber deal, HHI confirmed that HGS has also sealed a strategic partnership with Alfa Laval to retrofit a ballast water treatment system. The agreement was signed on 20th February.

Image: The LPG carrier Gas Star, operated by South Korea's KSS Line.