FOBAS repeats importance of representative manifold drip sample

The Lloyd’s Register Fuel Oil Bunkering Analysis and Advisory Service (FOBAS) on Friday morning issued an advisory repeating the importance of drawing a representative manifold drip sample. The full version is below:

Recently, CIMAC (International Council on Combustion Engines) WG7 issued a circular providing a consolidated industry perspective on recent contamination incidents. FOBAS also issued number of bulletins since April this year alerting our clients of the incidents starting off in US Gulf which then apparently spread around to bunker supplies in various other ports.

The circular basically discusses the key aspects such as scale of the on-board operational problems, subsequent fuel quality investigations, origin of untoward chemical components and finally responsibilities of ship operators and fuel suppliers. Overall, CIMAC fuels (WG7) concluded that there is no clear explanation of what happened in the supply chain causing fuel supplies with compromised quality. However, due to number of suppliers involved, it is deduced that incident is likely to have happened further upstream. Though this episode emphasised the importance of ensuring supply chain integrity and responsibilities of marine fuel suppliers to ensure fuel should not only comply with the ISO 8217 table 1 & 2 requirements but also to the ISO 8217 clause 5 ensuring fuel is ‘fit for purpose’.

FOBAS would like to re-iterate the importance of drawing a representative manifold drip sample for analysis from each bunker stem and following up with good fuel management practices of record keeping, handling, storage and performance monitoring of fuel system components.

Related: CIMAC: Legal system to decide where fault lies for contaminated bunkers

Published: 16 November, 2018