On 26th April 2018, Veritas Petroleum Services (VPS) issued a Bunker Alert informing about sticking of fuel plungers, fuel-pump seizures and failures affecting multiple vessels when burning fuel oil bunkered in Houston, Texas. However, in a recent update, VPS said that the problem has been increased.
At that time the problem was wide spread and not limited to any particular supplier or barge, VPS mentioned. It was more a potential upstream production, or refinery issue, with the cause still unknown. Now this problem has grown, as it affected at least 30 vessels in its program.
[smlsubform prepend=”GET THE SAFETY4SEA IN YOUR INBOX!” showname=false emailtxt=”” emailholder=”Enter your email address” showsubmit=true submittxt=”Submit” jsthanks=false thankyou=”Thank you for subscribing to our mailing list”]
VPS has undertaken detailed forensic analysis of the many samples it received from numerous vessels, in order to identify which components were common to all of the fuel samples and have the physical properties, which could cause these problems.
However, none of the samples gave any clue to the problem. After using additional test, phenolic compounds were present in every sample taken from vessels experiencing problem.
VPS noted:
VPS has identified that phenolic contamination of fuel oils gives rise to problems with fuel injection equipment and filter clogging. It is therefore our conclusion that the presence of phenolic compounds are most likely the cause of problems arising from this batch of problem fuel delivered in Houston and surrounding ports.
Phenolic compounds are violating the Clause 5 of ISO 8217 which states that “The fuel should not include any added substance or chemical wastefuel which jeopardizes the safety or adversely affects the performance of the machinery; or is harmful to personnel; or contributes overall to additional air pollution.”
When vessels are experiencing such issues, samples have to be taken from the fuel system for evidence collection and further analysis, VPS concluded.
