A range of new regulations related to the sulphur content in fuel are presently being prepared or in the implementation phase. Due to these new regulations, such as Marpol Annex VI and the EU Sulphur Directive, the shipping community is faced with new challenges on a large scale, especially those ships that will operate both inside and outside restricted areas, switching over from one fuel to another, in some cases to a distillate fuel. The experience of such alternating trade is limited.
For a long time the traditional approach to operation on HFO has been “pier-to-pier”, with the recommendation not to change over between Heavy Fuel Oil and Light Fuel oil, except in emergency or in preparation for maintenance. This issue is now becoming more complicated.
Not much can be done on the engine to reduce SOx emission. Hence solutions are very much of a fuel strategy or gas cleaning nature:
- fuel strategies being
(a) run on MDO all the time,
(b) balance emissions between equipment so the ship
is globally compliant,
(c) run on low sulphur fuel in controlled areas or
(d) blend fuel onboard before use in machinery
- clean exhaust gases with scrubber
Wärtsilä has already offered beginning of 2005 guidelines for low sulphur fuel oil operation. The purpose of this document is to provide advice for design, modification and operation of newbuildings and existing ships to comply with future legislation related to low sulphur content in the fuel.
