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Carnival boosts scrubber installations to +70 ships, up to $400m outlay

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Scrubbers are going on 22 Carnival Cruise Lines ships, initially, along with scores more ships from other brands in the company
Carnival Corp. & plc said it would invest as much as $400m to expand innovative exhaust gas cleaning technology to more than 70 vessels across its brands, up from 32 announced last year.

The expansion covering over 70% of its fleet represents a hefty increase from the number of vessels indicated in September 2013.

Carnival said it will put as much as $400m into designing, building and installing the systems that will enable the company to meet new Emission Control Area standards that cap sulfur content of fuel oil at 0.1% starting in 2015.

The scrubbers are scheduled to be installed over the next three years.

The current installation plan initially includes 22 Carnival Cruise Lines vessels, nine Holland America Line ships, seven Princess Cruises vessels and three Cunard vessels. In addition to those 41 ships, two other Carnival Corp. brands, AIDA Cruises and Costa Cruises, will install the systems—10 ships for AIDA Cruises and six ships for Costa Cruises.

On May 5, AIDAluna emerged from a nine-day drydock in Hamburg with the first stage of the scrubbers installed.

The remaining schedule of installations will be forthcoming. In addition, Carnival said P&O Cruises is assessing how the systems can be most effective on its vessels under European Union environmental law.

'This is a key step forward for Carnival Corporation and its 10 brands­--and most importantly for the environment,' said Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald.