17OCT2019 - NEWS - FOBAS OFF-SPEC FUEL QUALITY REPORT

The Off-specification fuel quality report from Lloyd’s Register FOBAS for the first two weeks of October identified 102 instances where a result was outside the 95% confidence limit of the ISO 8217 test parameter or a value given by the BDN or sample label.

Fifteen of the off-spec instances came from fuels supplied in Singapore – ten of which were related to pour point issues.

Rotterdam accounted for 13 off-spec fuel instances, nine of which were related to viscosity.

Balboa, Panama accounted for nine instances, all but one of which were due to off-spec water content. The off-spec samples had a water content ranging between 0.75% and 1.10%, which would be manageable but still a concern. The ISO 8217 limit is 0.5%.

There were 13 instances where the fuels were off-spec due to their sulphur content. It is likely that sulphur content will feature more prominently in the quality reports when the IMO 2020 global cap comes into effect from 1 January.