OEMs, like shipowners, are facing the increasing need to ensure the operational flexibility and fuel efficiency of their power and propulsion systems as expensive new fuels gradually take hold.

Shipowners are looking to extend the viability of their existing assets, because as Hurtigruten Coastal Express CEO Hedda Felin says: “It’s more environmentally friendly to retrofit a vessel than to scrap and build a new one.”

In the first of three retrofits for the company, Kongsberg Maritime solutions have delivered a 23% cut in CO2 emissions on the 121-metre passenger vessel MS Richard. The vessel, built in 1993, underwent an extensive refit last summer at Myklebust Verft and has now completed its first year back in service.