Marine Fuels - Organic chlorides contamination seminar

As part of yesterdays Organic Chlorides in marine fuels seminar attended by a broad spectrum of vessel owners and charterers we conducted a number of polls with the participants the results of these should be considered through the lens that they represent the ideas and views of technical and commercial departments of buyers. At the moment could not be considered representative of the market as a whole as no supplier representation involved, but it gives us a good idea of what the buy side of the market wants.

64% of respondents believed that organic chlorides should be below 50 PPM under ISO 8217 with 20% responding that they believed there to be no limit.??It is clear from discussion that clause 5.2 of ISO is cause for much friction between buyers and sellers, with such ambiguity as to what is a ‘harmful level’ leading to very subjective debates. Again the merits of Solas and Marpol alongside the advice of engine manufacturers were discussed.

There was strong support for GCMS testing becoming mandatory as part of the pre-supply documentation with 24% of the room indicating they would be willing to pay a small premium to suppliers that make this available where it is not legislated. There was no support in the room for the idea that such claims are an isolated incident and did not warrant any increased scrutiny of quality.

The role of port and licensing authorities was discussed. In their position of oversight they were considered as being well placed to implement a testing regime, with the room evenly split between that of testing all cargoes or on a spot / random basis.

If you were not able to make the seminar please get in touch with your usual NSI bunker broker who would be glad to take you through other content of the meeting.

Thanks to all those that could participate and we look forward to welcoming you at the next event.