Although the sale of bunker oil at the Port of Rotterdam decreased in 2017, the throughput of bunkered liquefied natural gas (LNG) was up during the year.
Namely, the sale of fuel for shipping in the Rotterdam bunker port was at 9.9 million m3, down from 10.1 million m3. At the same time, the volume of bunkered LNG surged from less than 100 tonnes to 1,500 tonnes.
The increase in LNG bunkers was mainly due to the world’s first container ship, the Wes Amelie, that was converted to LNG propulsion. The vessel regularly bunkers at the City Terminal at the Prins Willem Alexanderhaven.
Last year, oil major Shell also put the ocean-going vessel Cardissa into use. The ship, which has Rotterdam as its work location, will supply customers throughout Europe with LNG from the Gate terminal in Rotterdam.
Around 1 to 1.5 million m3 of bunkered fuel oil consists of so-called ‘ultra-low sulfur fuel oil’ with a sulfur content lower than 0.1% (ULFSO). Ultra-low sulfur fuel oil has been used since 2015. At that time, the permissible sulfur content in fuel oil went from 1.0 to 0.1% in the ECAs (emission control areas) of the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the coasts along the United States.
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Source: Port of Rotterdam
