- IMO’s new regulation is to ensure that marine engines use a low-sulphur HFO or marine distillate oils, which comply with low-sulphur regulations.
- The installation of post-combustion treatments, such as a scrubber system, to curb SOx.
- The availability of high-sulphur HFO and its price, might greatly affect the return on investment of those owners who opted for scrubbers.
- ‘Bunker checklist’ supplements the vessel’s own safety management system procedures from pre-bunkering through bunkering to final completion.
- Lower sulphur content in fuels will contribute to decreased levels of ‘lubricity’ in engines, resulting in increased wear and tear in fuel pumps.
- Converting engines to run on LNG will provide considerable reductions in fuel costs as well as reducing emissions, including SOx.
- ‘Eco Speed’, Royston’s engine fuel monitoring system allows vessel operators and owners to determine the most economical speed against the best fuel consumption.
Incompatible bunker stems may leave shipowners facing serious engine repairs, requiring vessels to be taken out of service and leading to serious loss of earnings for operators, writes Royston technical director Neil Graham for an article published in Riviera Maritime Media.
IMO regulations
The aim of IMO’s new regulation is to ensure that marine engines use a low-sulphur HFO or marine distillate oils, which comply with low-sulphur regulations.
Marine fuel
The International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) new marine fuels rule to reduce the MARPOL Annex VI global fuel sulphur cap from 3.5% to 0.5%, is in effect from 1 January 2020.
Ban on non-compliant fuel carriage
A prohibition on the carriage of non-compliant fuel also came into force simultaneously.
Sulphuric acid and its impact
Formation
SOx when released into the atmosphere via a ship’s exhaust gas, combines with NO2. This acts as a catalyst and other compounds to form sulphuric acid.
Effects
This can contribute to the formation of acid rain. Thus causing damage to the quality of air, water, soil, food and life itself.
Ozone layer
It can also have a harmful effect on the ozone layer and thereby contribute to global warming.
Required action
It is therefore obligatory upon shipowners, vessel managers and crews to take the necessary steps to ensure that they understand the issues and their vessels are provided with fuel oil that is suitable for use by marine engine power plants.
Alternate method for compliance
There is an alternative option to using low-sulphur fuel. That is the installation of post-combustion treatments, such as a scrubber system, to curb SOx.
However, the investment is huge and time out of service for installation, only a small percentage of shipowners are opting for scrubbers, with most going for compliant fuels.
Fuel oils
For a long time the availability of very-low and ultra-low sulphur HFO has been a concern. But now, as the suppliers have started responding to the upcoming demand, supply does not seem to be a problem.
HFO availability
The availability of high-sulphur HFO and its price, might greatly affect the return on investment of those owners who opted for scrubbers.
Shipowners and operators problems
Engine repairs
Incompatible bunker stems may cause serious engine repairs, requiring vessels to be taken out of service and causing a serious loss of earnings for operators.
Sediments
The mixing of non-compatible fuels can lead to the formation of sediment in the tanks, which can block filters and purifiers.
Asphaltenes and cat-fines risks
Added to that is the ever-present risk of asphaltenes and cat-fines in certain fuels and it is clear how important the stemming of good quality fuel is, combined with good on-board management is essential to avoid damage to the engines and fuel systems.
Bunker checklist for safety
The nature and type of fuel oils that will be available are expected to differ significantly. Different mixes of fuels, a variety of blends will mean some steps needed to be taken to secure quality control.
Industry good practice proposes developing a ‘bunker checklist’ to supplement the vessel’s own safety management system procedures, a list of checks and tasks from pre-bunkering through bunkering to final completion and disconnection.
Feature of operations
Fuel segregation between bunker sources will also become a feature of future operations until all sources of fuel can be proven to be stable, mixable and compatible with each other.
- Smaller bunker orders may become the order of the day to avoid mixing different fuel supplies.
- Monitoring of the fuel will be increasingly important to avoid poor quality fuel reaching the engine, as well as running purifiers at their optimum settings, i.e. the right fuel oil temperature and the correct throughput (as slow as possible).
- Checks by port authorities on compliance, especially in Emission Control Areas (ECAs), will increase and it probably won’t be too long before on-board testing of sulphur content and emission measurement becomes the norm.
Technical challenges
- Lower sulphur content in fuels will contribute to decreased levels of ‘lubricity’ in engines, resulting in increased wear and tear in fuel pumps and requiring additional maintenance for injectors.
- These components have high tolerances and most manufacturers of fuel pumps have already moved towards a higher material specification for their plungers and often use a diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating to reduce wear.
- These coatings are extremely hard, corrosion resistant and have ultra-low coefficients of friction.
- They can also be deposited with a high-degree of control of the coating thickness.
If NO to high-sulphur HFO and scrubbers
If the decided to move away from high-sulphur HFO and scrubbers, below have to be taken care of.
- The cleaning of pipes and storage tanks will need careful planning and will inevitably result in substantial costs and down-time.
- Manual cleaning is time consuming, and again may result in down-time for the ship if not carefully planned.
- Recommended best practices is to flush through the system with distillate and afterwards dispose of it as waste oil.
Ships with scrubbers
Mostly, larger deep-sea vessels get scrubbers installed, which have high fuel consumptions and crucially have the space in the engine room to fit this equipment.
A 50t/day rate seems to be an accepted cut-off point for fitting a scrubber, with a reasonable return on investment within five years.
Alternate to Scrubbers and LSFO
LNG
Converting engines to run on LNG will provide considerable reductions in fuel costs as well as reducing emissions, including SOx.
- It will first need to be determined if the existing engines can be converted to gas, or if new engines are required (dual fuel or pure gas).
- Finding space in the engineroom for the storage tanks is key and, depending on whether the engines are converted to dual fuel or pure gas.
‘Eco Speed’
IMO 2020 aims to improve fuel consumption for the ship operator, and thereby keep costs to an acceptable limit and reduce all exhaust gas emissions, including SOx and CO2.
The implementation of advanced technologies such as ‘Eco Speed’ – a recent development in Royston’s engine fuel monitoring system allows vessel operators and owners to determine the most economical speed against the best fuel consumption for any particular vessel.
Project management
Close attention needs to be paid to the detail in the project management and planning of service jobs in meeting the requirements around Sulphur 2020. A careful review of the following should be made with a project management team appointed to handle the programme –
- the options (low-sulphur fuel or high-sulphur fuel plus scrubber, or conversion to LNG) around practicalities and
- return on investment.
Royston’s service
Customer’s compliance issues
Independent service providers such as Royston can be totally focused on providing a fully responsive engineering service that is geared towards meeting the specific timing, location and technical needs of customer-facing IMO Sulphur 2020 compliance issues.
Supervision
The company can provide such project management in collaboration with the relevant engine or scrubber manufacturers, as well as providing supervision of installations and fuel system cleaning and tank segregation.
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Source: Riviera Maritime Media
