Tag: fuel quality

Mr Tim Wilson, Principal Specialist on fuels, lubes and exhaust emissions at LR, discusses the approaching IMO 2020 regulation and the shipping industry that focuses on clean fuel, trying to avoid segregation risks and contaminated fuel. Mr Wilson highlights that one of the biggest challenges today is being ready to deal with the segregation of the new 0.50% fuel that is coming. 

In this article, Rebecca Penn-Chambers, Syndicate Executive, Eastern Syndicate, provides an overview regarding common issues surrounding notification of off-specification bunker disputes. As Ms. Penn-Chambers says, bunker quality disputes are not a new phenomenon, but there has been an upward trend in the number of disputes.

Following a late June alert regarding contaminated bunkers that were supplied in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Lloyd’s Register Fuel Oil Bunkering Analysis and Advisory Service (FOBAS) issued an update on 12 July, confirming presence of Carbon Tetrachloride in the contaminated fuels. 

Freight forwarder Panalpina has warned its ocean customers of potential disruption to supply chains ahead of the IMO 2020 sulphur cap. The regulators have laid out the rules, but the path for ship owners, operators and carriers to complying with the low sulphur limit remains rocky.

Vitol and Unipec are sending about 700,000 tonnes of contaminated Russian oil to Asia, in order to place the barrels rejected by buyers in Europe. Vitol and Unipec are targeting Chinese independent refiners, or teapots, which are interested in taking the oil. Currently, about 11 million barrels of contaminated Urals are heading to Asia, after being exported from the Baltic port of Ust Luga in the past weeks.

Crude oil exports from the Russian Port of Ust-Luga have been hindered over the last weeks, because of the contamination problem in Russia's Druzhba pipeline network. This network carries around one million barrels per day into European markets. Only this week the Portresumed to loading uncontaminated cargoes.

In light of the 2020 sulphur cap, the frequency of PSC taking spot samples of a ship’s fuel oil to verify its sulphur content is expected to increase significantly after 1 January 2020 and shipowners should prepare their ships and crew accordingly. 

The previous week FOBAS tested a number of fuels from Fujairah that contained elevated acid number (TAN). The tested TAN values were all well above the average for the port (0.12mgKOH/g). Therefore, FOBAS alerts that any such contaminants even at low levels contravenes the stipulations of Revised MARPOL Annex VI regulation 18.3 and International Marine Fuel Standard ISO 8217, Clause 5.

Lloyd’s Register witnessed a process demonstration, in which the exploration and drilling company Genoil used a hydroconversion upgrader to convert high sulphur heavy fuel oil into IMO 2020-compliant marine fuel. During the desulphurisation process, the sulphur content of an HSFO was reduced from 1.72% to 0.38%.

On March 27 Toyota Tsusho Petroleum filed a complaint against Nustar Energy Services at a US Court. The file regarded alleged off-spec bunkers, and TTP seeks $421,784.94 from NES through two claims. Namely, on April 19, 2018, NES supplied 840 metric tonnes (mt) of IFO 380 to the Singapore-flagged chemical tanker 'M/V Beatrice' at the Port of Houston.