,/A>Posted on 04/01/2022 5:06:08 PM PDT by blam
,/A>
A major bunker fuel contamination has been reported in Singapore, the world’s largest bunkering hub, with dozens of ships receiving tainted high sulfur fuel oil (HSFO) that has led to dangerous power blackouts, according to Bloomberg.
Fuel testing firm Veritas Petroleum Services (VPS) reports 34 vessels were identified to have received HSFO from two unidentified Singapore suppliers between February and March. The marine fuel contained up to 2,000 parts per million (ppm) of chlorinated hydrocarbons.
“These bunker fuel contaminations have affected 14 vessels so far and the impact has been failure of the fuel system to the auxiliary engine resulting in loss of power and propulsion creating a blackout.
“Fuel system failure arose from seizure of the fuel pumps and plunger and barrel corrosion, caused by the bunker fuel contaminants,” VPS said in the statement.
Out of the 34 vessels, almost half experienced power blackouts with the loss of propulsion systems, creating a hazardous situation if the ships were underway.
Such incidents could dent demand for bunker fuel in Singapore which is at the crossroads of a centuries-old trade route that links Asia to Europe and the Middle East to the US.
Maritime news website Splash 247 reported in early March that the contaminated fuel contains “abrasive particles that could cause accelerated wear of diesel engine components.”
This is just another wrench thrown into the snarled global supply chain as one can only imagine the affected ships would need to go down for maintenance and repairs.
For some color on the state of the current global supply chain, Goldman Sachs’ Jordan Alliger notes this week, “we are past peak bottlenecks.” Even though congestion remains elevated, supply chains around the world are normalizing.
As for the vessels affected by contaminated marine fuel, no information was given on what type of ships were affected nor size or maintenance and repair timelines.
This is what I want to see happen to the private jets of all the billionaire psychopaths hiding out in New Zealand until their Great Reset is complete and 6.5 billion human beings are dead.
It would be fun hearing about one falling out of the sky every few weeks.
Running E15 would blackout most cars today.
A guy working for one of the big ocean carriers told me bunker fuel is basically melted down roof shingles - it is the actual bottom of the barrel.
But the reduction in fuel econ usually offsets any price difference.
Look for the yellow gas cap.
Sabotage?
Fuel filters? Not familiar with these mega diesels.
14The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place. 15Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.…
“...A guy...told me...”
-
I talk to a lot of “guys” who are full of B.S.
High sulfur + dirt could be caused by adding some cheap, crappy high sulfur, dirty crude oil into the bunker fuel. A real kicker is the chlorinated hydrocarbon contamination.
Chlorinated hydrocarbons are not a significant component of crude oil nor are chemically produced in oil refining. They are present in a number petrochemical processes in one way or another.
First, cut some cheap, crappy crude oil into the bunker fuel to lower the cost per gallon of some middle man while selling to the ship consumer at market price. Second, the chlorinated hydrocarbons likely come from adding hazardous wastes that normally are disposed of via specialized and expensive incinerators or cement kilns. Some thousands of $$$ per barrel legal disposal costs.
There likely are “finger prints” in the contaminated bunker fuel that can be traced up the supply chain to track to the companies and persons involved in the apparent corruption. Analytical lab data is admissible in court as long as properly certified lab quality control information is paired with it. Singapore is a bad place for bad people to run afoul of the law.
Normal practice is to take constant fuel samples during a transfer and if contamination is detected you stop the transfer. Then you reject the sale.
You don’t just keep filling because it will spoil all your fuel.
“Look for the yellow gas cap...”
...and move on. That’s NOT the car for you.
I wonder how this could be bypassed during bunkering. A magic pipe perhaps on the fuel barge?
Singapore’s bunker fuel sales seen steady over coming months after Feb’s drop
no, you take your samples right on the coupling right where it mates, you have these little glass bottles you take from a sample valve.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/10-67-2/fm10-67-2_ch9.pdf
“On-Line Sample.” = “An on-line sample is
taken from a flowing pipeline by opening the valve
and collecting the sample during the flow of the
product. These samples are used mostly for the
water separometer index and particulate contaminant tests.”
The sampling procedure you described for bunkering is a grab sample. Samples collected for any grab are a snapshot. It's what's in the tank or pipeline in that exact moment.
The “magic pipeline” can defeat a grab sample. Occasionally, they are discovered in ocean vessels, usually associated with oily bilge water, ballast water, around the oil water separators and treatment equipment for the sanitary wastewater.
More on a magic pipe. This would typically be an obscure, camouflaged or hidden pipe connection that allows an illegal or at least unethical introduction of a contaminant into a properly on specification liquid.
In shipping, magic pipelines were not uncommon several decades ago but are rare now. Occasionally, these are discovered in port inspections and when this happens, masters and mates are in typically in legal trouble, owners are hammered with big time $$$ fines, ships are arrested and port bans imposed.
In the mid-1990s, international regs on oily water discharges from ships hit the ocean shipping world. This cost ship owners big $$$ to comply with. My company sent me to the US West Coast to evaluate setting up a bilge water treating business at one of the major ports where we already had a bulk fuel storage facility. The message from ship owners was wink wink, nod nod we don't have any discharges to the ocean. Conclusion…. It's magic, poof the contaminated water disappears.
It took a hammer from Coast Guards and port authorities worldwide before effective compliance was achieved. My company did not go into this bilge water treatment business. We had better options for capital investment. The technology aspect of it was easy. The business aspect sucked at the time. Thanks for your time my friend. This has been interesting. I’m going to pop over to www.gcaptain.com to see if they have any reporting on this. Cheers….
I checked www.gcaptain.com and also the two sources that the OP article used as a basis for their article. Their Splash source was pretty good as is gcaptain.
The OP article omitted a few details that are useful for geeks like me. In addition, the only ships affected are those purchasing high sulfur fuel oil. These ships are equipped with sulfur scrubbers for exhaust scrubbing.
The HSFO met the standard ISO specification for HSFO. It took higher level analysis to ID the problem with abrasive solids causing damage to pumps and other moving parts that led to engine shutdowns. I think what they are saying is that it is not an excessive amounts of solids but instead their unusually abrasive properties.
The chlorinated hydrocarbons were mentioned but apparently are not a contributing to the reported engine shutdowns. I think the HCLs are a concern more for longer term engine damage. If this is right then I suspect it is a corrosion or perhaps embrittlement issue. 2000 parts per million chlorinated HCLs is wicked high for the kinds of things I worked with (which were not fuel oils like bunker).
The exact cause of the unusual HSFO (but ISO compliant) is in the process of being tracked through the supply chain to ID the point source. Maybe it's nefarious, which was my knee jerk reaction or maybe it's random. More details likely to come out.
They have filters on both the transfer and the engines but part of the transfer sampling is visual inspection.
You know, we were required to keep our samples and send them in for analysis and storage, if they did any...then they have them.
As far as the ISO Standard, you can meet it but fail to take samples correctly, if they were sampling correctly, they would have detected this.
We run each sample through a battery of tests, one of them is a disc filter, if you run the fuel through the disc you do a visual inspection of the disc, we also did a flow test on the filter to ensure there wasn’t invisible damage caused by the fuel.
Honestly, if they did it...this wouldn’t have happened.
The transfer tests exceed the standard for 50% of the samples, it is statistics. Any random sample can pass, you have to do the correct number of samples depending on how much is being transferred based on the flow rate..
Our sampling was anywhere from every 2-10minutes.
I said sabotage, because I know you could supply filters to these ships with compromised fuel filters, that would do it...even if the fuel met spec.
If something like this happens, a proper investigation is to retrieve the fuel filters for analysis.
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