Shipping companies may face delivery delays of vessels fitted with exhaust gas filtering equipment that complies with anti-pollution rules that kicked in this year due to the impact from the virus outbreak in China.

A Mitsui OSK Lines executive said many vessels were in Chinese docks to get so-called scrubbers installed to meet the new emissions rules but with four Chinese provinces asking companies to extend the Lunar New Year holiday by a week, to Feb. 10, workers may not be available to complete installations…