Singapore-based marine fuel surveyor and consulting firm Maritec Pte Ltd has warned its clients this week that six samples of ship fuel sold in Singapore had “resulted in severe sludging at centrifuges, clogged pipelines, overwhelmed fuel filters”.
These contaminated marine fuel could potentially clog and damage ship engines says the Singapore hub, the world’s largest ship refuelling hub, following which it has sent an alert to its clients through a marine fuel surveying company.
Too late to discover
Now the problem fuel has made its way to Asia.
“The test results of the Singapore samples seems to point to both “Estonian type oil shale” and “U.S. type fracked shale oil” being sold into Singapore,” the surveyor said.
“Fuels from Singapore are exported to all ASEAN countries and even all the way to Hong Kong. It should be therefore be expected that the whole region will be affected,” Maritec said.
Singapore-based traders of marine fuel, or bunker fuel, say the contaminated fuels are hard to detect because they pass industry standards but contain compounds not usually tested for.
Plastic compound in fuel
Some U.S. fuel oil products have been coming into Singapore recently, and more should be arriving in August, said a Singapore-based bunker fuel trader.
These shipments had “high levels of styrene and phenols along with other plastic related compounds,” he said.
“The problem fuel fully met the ISO8217:2005 specifications in all respects but was found to contain chemicals not from petroleum refining,” Maritec said.
At least two cargoes of contaminated fuel oil weighing up to 270,000 tonnes each, were shipped into Singapore over the past month, and have contributed to a spike in bunker prices as the demand for specific fuels has tightened, a trade source said.
Halts Engine at sea
The first problem sample in Asia emerged on April 13 in Port Kelang in Malaysia, and resulted in a “dead ship” that had to be towed back to port from off the coast of Vietnam with all fuel pumps damaged, said the Maritec alert.
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Source: Reuters
