One of crucial, but undervalued, advantages of gasoline high quality testing is turnaround time. Because the earlier a possible danger is highlighted, the faster you’ll be able to take the mandatory corrective motion to mitigate it.
And that swift proactivity can lead to financial savings for the operator that may run into a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars}. In reality, an unbiased seven-12 months examine by the Swedish Club found that the typical price of essential engine harm attributable to poor gasoline administration is USD 342,000 per incident.
Yet such harm will be averted by proactive gasoline administration, using ISO8217 [and additional bespoke tests] to forewarn of any potential dangers.
Our proactive strategy in follow – case examine
On fifteenth January 2021, a 1,700 TEU containership bunkered 175 MT of Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil in Rotterdam, ordered by the charterer of the vessel. The vessel supervisor was a supporter of the worth of gasoline high quality testing to guard their belongings and was contracted to the VPS Fuel Quality Testing Program. As such, the vessel’s chief engineer took a steady drip pattern on the ship’s manifold [during bunkering] for VPS to check.
This pattern arrived within the VPS laboratory in Rotterdam for ISO8217 testing on sixteenth January 2021. The gasoline evaluation report was issued to the vessel managers on seventeenth January 2021 with a right away observe-up phone name, because the check outcomes had been generated exterior workplace hours.
The VPS evaluation recognized off-specification outcomes for sediments. The outcomes additionally indicated the gasoline contained excessive ranges of abrasive catalytical fines [210 mg/kg Aluminium-Silicon].
The most allowed worth as per marine gasoline commonplace ISO 8217:2010 is 60 mg/kg and engine producers specify a most restrict of 10-15 mg/kg of Aluminium-Silicon at engine inlet.
In view of the extraordinarily excessive catalytic-fines stage, VPS suggested that this gasoline shouldn’t be used.
The VPS consumer subsequently positioned the charterers on discover, highlighting the gasoline was unfit-for-objective with a excessive potential danger of engine harm ought to the gasoline be used.
This VPS consumer subsequently agreed with the charterer to carry out a joint evaluation at a 3rd laboratory to additional decide the focus of components throughout the pattern from the bunker tanker.
VPS was current throughout the seal-breaking of the pattern, appearing for and on behalf of the vessel managers.
Then the VPS check outcomes for Aluminium-Silicon had been confirmed. Therefore, each events agreed to de-bunker this gasoline and provide contemporary bunkers on the charterer’s account.
VPS additionally really helpful that the vessel’s tanks containing this gasoline must be cleaned to get rid of any abrasive materials that will have settled out from the gasoline.
The events adopted these suggestions and tanks had been cleaned, once more on the charterer’s account.
The velocity with which VPS carried out knowledgeable evaluation and reporting inside 48 hours of the bunker pattern being taken on the vessel – mixed with our attentive customer support and technical recommendation – proactively prevented any harm occurring.
Looking at this one other means, if the vessel had used this explicit off-specification gasoline, it might have suffered extreme engine harm. This would have resulted in expensive repairs, substitute of gasoline system and engine parts, delays, lack of goodwill between proprietor and charterer and security at sea would have been compromised.
Proving once more the significance of solely working with the world-leaders on this trade – VPS.
Wolf Rehder
VPS Area Manager, Germany
