Chevron’s FAST and DOT.FAST annual review highlights hidden savings

Asia Maritime Pacific operates a fleet of bulk carriers. The company has worked closely with Chevron Marine Lubricants for several years and is a regular user of Chevron’s FAST™ and DOT.FAST® oil analysis services.

Following the shift to using very low sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO) in 2020, some of Asia Maritime Pacific’s vessels encountered abnormal main engine liner wear, accompanied by distinctive red deposits on piston crowns and top edges.

Monitoring for recurrence of the issue across multiple vessels would have been a complex and time-consuming task using individual oil analysis reports. To effectively monitor for this and other opportunities to improve their operations, Asia Maritime Pacific required a more long-term perspective offering a consolidated overview of the entire fleet, and covering not just the main engine but all lubricated onboard equipment.

The Solution

Chevron Marine Lubricants recommended FAST and DOT.FAST Annual Reviews, an added service for Chevron’s oil analysis customers that compiles yearly information from multiple individual reports in an easy-to-read format. Visibility of historical analysis helps operators to spot opportunities to help optimise oil use and equipment condition.

Regular FAST and DOT.FAST oil analysis reports contain vital information about how a lubricant is performing in combination with the particular equipment with which the lubricant is being used. The equipment can range from winches, to compressor valves and main engines. When any of these fail, operators can incur losses that build up over the life of a vessel, as well as stoppages that can unnecessarily impact individual voyages.

For those responsible for managing multiple vessels — such as a fleet managers and superintendents — individual reports can be time consuming to analyse, potentially resulting in a delay to corrective action being taken to resolve issues. While isolated problems are easy to spot in single reports, it can be challenging to build a big picture of any issues evolving across the fleet.

Chevron’s FAST™ and DOT.FAST® Annual Review provides an overview of the condition of the lubricant and machinery involved. It also summarizes the overall severity of issues discovered during the analysis. Other elements of the reports include:

• Summary of fleet analysis condition
• Results by vessel, product and application
• Analysis of issues and identification of the root cause
• Recommendations
• Vessel management advice for improvement

Allied with close support from Chevron’s Technical Specialists, the Annual Review is a valuable tool that can provide deeper insight on vessel, machinery and oil performance.

The Result

The benefits that Asia Maritime Pacific gained from the annual review go well beyond watching out for the recurrence of red deposits (although this issue was successfully avoided). Michael Gu Xinjun, Fleet Manager, Asia Maritime Pacific Shanghai, explained that the level of detail in the review — and the ability to compare across vessels and time periods — offered other opportunities for optimization.

By performing an annual review of the fleet oil analysis data we have found a real opportunity to reveal hidden issues

…says Michael Gu Xinjun. “The actions required are simple and often inexpensive to perform, while helping us to improve ship management reduces costs across the fleet.”

The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and do not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.