LR: Fuel quality continues to be ‘critical issue’ for shipping industry

Ongoing concerns around fuel quality are still a critical factor and significant expense for the maritime industry, class society Lloyd’s Register (LR) said in a new report.

The “Fuel quality report 2024”, produced by LR’s Fuel Oil Bunker Analysis and Advisory Service (FOBAS), revealed the overall state of fuel quality in 2024 has remained much like that of the past few years, particularly since the transition to predominantly very low sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO) in 2020.

Persistent issues such as cat fines, stability, sulfur content, and flash point continue to be challenging, and isolated incidents of chemical contamination are still occurring.

A significant section of the report explored the growing adoption of biofuels, with an increasing number of ship operators starting to use biofuels onboard on a regular basis or at least trialing to gain the necessary experience.

Looking ahead, the report considers the implications of the newly implemented ISO8217:2024 standard, as well as the EU ETS and other regulatory pressures from the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the EU, and the broader industry. This shift is expected to drive the growth of the multiplicity of the biofuel supply market, which could present challenges related to availability, costs, and fuel quality control.

Additionally, there is continuing development and progress on alternative fuels, such as methanol, hydrogen, ammonia. These new fuels introduce a number of issues to consider but are expected to be important parts of the overall fuel mix going forwards and for the foreseeable future alongside traditional marine residual and distilate fuels and drop-in fuels.

“Looking forward, the application of the newly established ISO 8217:2024 standard, which includes all current fuel types, is anticipated to be adopted swiftly. We can also expect an increase in the demand and use of different biofuel and RFNBO types, not just of FAME. This adds significant challenges to the maritime industry to maintain the control of the quality and composition transparency of the fuel supplied,” the report said.

At the recent IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 82), the IMO revealed that 28,620 ships with a combined gross tonnage of 1,301 million GT reported their oil consumption data to the IMO in 2023.

The data showed that total fuel used by these ships was slightly less in 2023 (211 million tonnes) compared to 2022 (213 million tonnes).

In addition, 93.52% of the fuel used in 2023 was either heavy fuel oil, light fuel oil or diesel/gas oil (compared to 94.65% for 2022). Fuels that are not in those categories represent 6.48% of the fuel used in 2023 (compared to 5.35% in 2022).