Survey finds 94% of respondents had problems with their fuel deliveries
A new DNV Petroleum Services (DNVPS) survey has found that, in the past 12 months, 94% of ship operator respondents encountered problems with their fuel deliveries, the majority of whom said off-specification bunkers was their biggest challenge.
About 43% said the off-specification fuel deliveries were serious quality cases.Filter clogging was the most common problem encountered, followed by sludging, fuel pump sticking and seizures, and piston ring breakages.
While most of the respondents said the fuel quality cases they encountered were resolved in a satisfactory manner, 18% did not report a positive outcome.
This latter group suggested that the availability of an industry standard on fuel contaminants, technical advice guiding the ship on how use problematic fuels, and debunkering would have been useful.
About 50% of the respondents were from technical departments, 15% from operations and 18% represented management. about 60% of the respondents are involved in fuel purchasing.
Some 73% of the respondents have ships trading in the emission control areas (ECAs) and the survey findings suggest that “a more matured enforcement of the sulphur regulations in Europe has
developed, with ship operators gradually becoming adapted to the requirements in the EU and the ECAs”.
About 64% of the respondents felt there has been an improvement in the Port State Control enforcement of fuel sulphur regulations over the past 12 months.
Of the 15% who said they have had problems with fuel regulations when trading in the EU and the ECAs, these problems were mainly related to fuel change-over issues, fuel availability, and disagreements with suppliers on fuel sulphur regulatory compliance.
Source: World Bunkering
