Fuel quality remains critical issue for the maritime industry

Ongoing considerations round gasoline high quality proceed to be a essential issue and vital expense for the maritime {industry}, in accordance with the Lloyd’s Register (LR) Gas High quality Report 2024.

The report, produced by LR’s Gas Oil Bunker Evaluation and Advisory Service (FOBAS), is designed to offer marine gasoline purchasers, shipowners, and operators in search of a deeper understanding of present gasoline high quality traits and the evolving regulatory setting.

The report reveals the general state of gasoline high quality in 2024 stays very similar to that of the previous few years, notably because the transition to predominantly VLSFO in 2020. Persistent points comparable to cat-fines, stability, sulphur content material, and flash level proceed to be difficult, and remoted incidents of chemical contamination are nonetheless occurring.

A big part of the report is devoted to exploring the rising adoption of biofuels, with an growing variety of ship operators beginning to use biofuels onboard regularly or a minimum of trialling to realize essential expertise.

Wanting forward, the report considers the implications of the newly carried out ISO8217:2024 customary, in addition to the EU ETS and different regulatory pressures from IMO, EU, and the broader {industry}. This shift is predicted to drive the expansion of the multiplicity of the biofuel provide market, which may current challenges associated to availability, prices, and gasoline high quality management. Moreover, there may be persevering with improvement and progress on various fuels, comparable to methanol, hydrogen, ammonia.

Andrew Shaw, Managing Director, Lloyds Register FOBAS, mentioned: “As a classification society with an industry-leading gasoline testing enterprise and portfolio, Lloyd’s Register is uniquely positioned to help the maritime sector in its pursuit of operational excellence and environmental accountability. Our end-to-end assurance applied sciences and complete method to measuring and tracing gasoline high quality and GHG emissions set us aside.

“With the publication of our Gas High quality Report 2024, Lloyd’s Register is offering important knowledge and insights that may assist our shoppers make knowledgeable selections on marine gasoline purchases. Our evaluation not solely highlights the commonest parameters exceeding specification limits but additionally delves into the findings of non-standard forensic exams, which have confirmed essential for detecting exterior chemical contamination in gasoline.”

Obtain a duplicate of the Gas High quality Report 2024 right here: FOBAS Gas Perception: Gas high quality stories | LR