News

The “Sulphur Cap 2020” air emission legislation was issued under Regulation 14.1.3 of MARPOL Annex VI and it will limit the maximum Sulphur content of fuel to 0.50%. It will affect all fuels used by vessels outside the existing Sulphur Emission Control Areas (Baltic Sea, North Sea, North America & Caribbean ECA) where the sulfur limit of 0.10% was introduced in January 1st, 2015.

Most of existing power propulsion plants were designed to operate on heavy fuel oil while utilizing lighter fuels with lower sulfur content during system start-up and shutdown or when engines or boilers are running on the partial loads. Hence, the operation on low sulphur fuels is a complex matter. To achieve a continuous and trouble-free operation vessel might need to carry out the upgrades to the existing machinery and systems.

One of the largest LNG tanker fleet owners in the world approached Albion Marine Solutions to prepare a feasibility study evaluating the options available for handling excess heat/ steam while operating on low sulphur fuel oil.
In original conditions, heat which was transferred by exhaust gases was utilized to convert water into steam which in turn was utilized to keep the viscosity of HFO within a recommended limit, with an excess of heat being dumped to Steam Condensers. Steam Condensers were sized according to previous heat consumption demands and not capable to deal with a surplus of steam while HFO transferring and storage systems are not in use.
The study considered the following areas for review:

• Bunker tankage allocation
• The configuration of fuel handling and separation system with special consideration to a treatment and injection properties of compliant hybrid fuels
• Capabilities of fuel pumps to handle a compliant fuel
• Fuel switching, and most importantly,
• Handling an excess of heat. 

Albion Marine were pleased to assist the client to get ready for coming legislation.