The fuel quality issues would likely arise once the IMO Emission Control Areas (ECAs) reduce the maximum sulphur content of residual fuel from the current limit of 1% to 0.1% from 1 January 2015, according to Simon Neo, executive director of bunker company Piroj International.
Neo said that bunker suppliers would need to blend the fuel more in order to achieve the lower sulphur content of 0.1%, and overblending would result in problems with flashpoint in marine gasoil grades and problems with catalytic fines in heavy fuel oil grades, Platts reported from the Asia Pacific Maritime 2014 conference held in Singapore last Friday.
High flash points could lead to explosions onboard vessels while catalytic fines combined with other elements in the fuel could result in damage to ships' engines.
Neo was quoted as saying that the key question is what types of cutterstocks would suppliers use to blend and this “could be anything”, potentially leading to “huge problems” when the IMO regulation kicks in.
He added that the alternative would be to use distillates to replace residual fuel but this would have a huge impact on costs.
Residual fuel grades like Singapore 380 cst is priced at around $600 per metric tonne while the distillate grade, or marine gasoil, is indicated at about $900 per metric tonne.
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