IMO published this document July 15, 2011 providing the summary for the sixty-second session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 62). The document covers Harmful Aquatic Organisms in Ballast Water (7 system receiving Basic Approval, 2 systems receiving Final Approval, and other matters covered by the GESAMP-BWWG), Recycling of Ships, Interpretation of and Amendments to MARPOL and Related Instruments, Implementation of the OPRC Convention and the OPRC-HNS Protocol and Relevant Conference Resolutions, etc.
What I found interesting is contained in "Matters Related to MARPOL Annex I" under para 7.18 noting that THE MOST SIGNIFICANT REVISION OF REGULATION 12 OF MARPOL ANNEX I AND THE ASSOCIATED UNIFIED INTERPRETATIONS WAS THAT IT NO LONGER CONTAINS THE PROVISION TO ALLOW FOR AN INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN THE SLUDGE TANK DISCHARGE PIPING AND BILGE-WATER PIPING...
I emphasize the comment because, in our experience, nothing good comes from a connection between sludge and bilge-water. De-canting sludge to bilge-water makes bilge-water treatment unnecessarily difficult and expensive because the sludge components transferred must be removed in adsorption media or cartridges.
Whereas the above provision applies only to ships delivered after 2014, I'd recommend considering this recommendation on existing ships, as a safe guard as well as part of an IBTS.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Carbon Emissions
From time to time I get an e-mail alert from Jim Hansen, as happened today, regarding his recent trip to New Zealand.
On page 3 of his reflections, Jim Hansen shows fossil fuel carbon emissions for 4 countries, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and New Zealand. The reason I mention this is that national carbon emissions can be reduced. Sweden's emissions peaked around 1970 and declined from 25Mt/y to 15Mt/y in 2010; Denmark's are on a downward slope and Norway's seem to be declining for the last 3 years.
How is Canada doing? Our carbon emissions seem to have peaked in 2007 at 750Mt/y, as they are 2% lower in 2008, according to Environment Canada.
Could we do better and save money? I think we could.
The combined greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light duty gasoline trucks were 85.4 million tons for 2008, representing 11.6% of the national total. That means we burned about 35.5 billion liters of gasoline that year in cars, SUVs and pick up trucks that year.
From my experience with an 8-cylinder GMC Sierra, a VW TDI and Passat 2.0T, I have a fair notion of actual fuel consumption. On my way to town my GMC uses about twice what the Passat used and the TDI uses about 25% less than the Passat did on the highway. By shifting from the Passat to the TDI I reduced my emissions significantly without a penalty on driving comfort; actually it's more comfortable in the TDI than in the Sierra.
For simplicity, using a gasoline price of $ 1.00/liter, then Canadians paid $ 35.5 billion for gasoline in 2008. With a shift from SUVs, trucks and vans to cars, we can reduce our fuel consumption by at least 5-10%, which equates to reducing our fuel expenses by between $ 1.75 billion to $ 3.55 billion a year! With gasoline prices going up, the savings today are 25%+ higher, well ahead of inflation.
Maybe the environmental argument is too abstract, the potential fuel cost savings make a pretty good argument.
On page 3 of his reflections, Jim Hansen shows fossil fuel carbon emissions for 4 countries, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and New Zealand. The reason I mention this is that national carbon emissions can be reduced. Sweden's emissions peaked around 1970 and declined from 25Mt/y to 15Mt/y in 2010; Denmark's are on a downward slope and Norway's seem to be declining for the last 3 years.
How is Canada doing? Our carbon emissions seem to have peaked in 2007 at 750Mt/y, as they are 2% lower in 2008, according to Environment Canada.
Could we do better and save money? I think we could.
The combined greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light duty gasoline trucks were 85.4 million tons for 2008, representing 11.6% of the national total. That means we burned about 35.5 billion liters of gasoline that year in cars, SUVs and pick up trucks that year.
From my experience with an 8-cylinder GMC Sierra, a VW TDI and Passat 2.0T, I have a fair notion of actual fuel consumption. On my way to town my GMC uses about twice what the Passat used and the TDI uses about 25% less than the Passat did on the highway. By shifting from the Passat to the TDI I reduced my emissions significantly without a penalty on driving comfort; actually it's more comfortable in the TDI than in the Sierra.
For simplicity, using a gasoline price of $ 1.00/liter, then Canadians paid $ 35.5 billion for gasoline in 2008. With a shift from SUVs, trucks and vans to cars, we can reduce our fuel consumption by at least 5-10%, which equates to reducing our fuel expenses by between $ 1.75 billion to $ 3.55 billion a year! With gasoline prices going up, the savings today are 25%+ higher, well ahead of inflation.
Maybe the environmental argument is too abstract, the potential fuel cost savings make a pretty good argument.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
OPEC May 2011 MOMR
At the middle of the month OPEC release their Monthly Oil Market Report, a document of over 80 pages. The MOMR reviews the global economies and discusses the oil outlook.
For 2011, OPEC projects a 1.4mb/d demand increase over 2010, which is now somewhat lower than the 2.1mb/d they projected earlier. That means oil demand grew from the 84.57mb/d in 2009 to 86.67mb/d in 2010 and is projected to increase to 88.08mb/d for the year 2011.
The principal drivers of this demand growth are the emerging economies. Total demand in the developed world, North America, Western Europe and OECD Pacific (Total OECD) is projected to increase by only 0.19mb/d from 2009 to 2011. 87.23% of global oil demand growth comes from outside the OECD. In a couple of years the "total other regions" will consume more oil than the "total OECD".
The interesting development, for the marine market, is contained in the forecasted y-o-y growth in product demand. For 2011 the trend in declining residual fuels continues unabated at -6%, gasoline and diesel demand lead the refined product growth at 21% and 41% respectively.
For 2011, OPEC projects a 1.4mb/d demand increase over 2010, which is now somewhat lower than the 2.1mb/d they projected earlier. That means oil demand grew from the 84.57mb/d in 2009 to 86.67mb/d in 2010 and is projected to increase to 88.08mb/d for the year 2011.
The principal drivers of this demand growth are the emerging economies. Total demand in the developed world, North America, Western Europe and OECD Pacific (Total OECD) is projected to increase by only 0.19mb/d from 2009 to 2011. 87.23% of global oil demand growth comes from outside the OECD. In a couple of years the "total other regions" will consume more oil than the "total OECD".
The interesting development, for the marine market, is contained in the forecasted y-o-y growth in product demand. For 2011 the trend in declining residual fuels continues unabated at -6%, gasoline and diesel demand lead the refined product growth at 21% and 41% respectively.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Bilge Water Discharges
Canadian Inland Water regulations authorize the treatment of oily bilge water through approved equipment overboard with the ship making way. The required effluent quality must be better than 5 parts per million (ppm) of oil in the discharge water, while the ship is moving.
The regulations class oil and oily water as a pollutants that mustn't be discharged from a ship. Therefore, since the regulations authorize the treatment of oily bilge water, the effluent that falls within the regulated discharge requirements becomes then a discharge free of oil under the oil pollution prevention regulations.
How oil-free is then the 5ppm bilge water discharge from a ship? Are compliant bilge water discharges a pollution threat for the Great Lakes - Seaway system?
1 liter is a cube with sides of 100mm each, or equal to 1 Million cu.mm; therefore 1 cu.mm of oil in 1 liter of bilge water is 1ppm; 5ppm is one cube with sides of 1.7mm in 1 liter of bilge water. Which means that the upper limit for compliant bilge water discharges is a small drop of oil in 1 liter of bilge water. This quantity of oil is evenly dispersed in the effluent, in very fine droplets, too fine to coalesce into larger oil droplets to form visible pollution.
So not only do the regulations require fairly clean water, but in addition the ship has also to "make way".
Here is a quick calculation on "typical" worst case discharges from Canadian Lakers. One of the most common bilge separator sizes installed is a 16GPM system, which processes bilge water at about 3,600 liters per hour equal to 3.6 liters per second. A ship making way at 2 knots, the ship does 2 nautical miles per hour, equal to about 3.6km/hr or about 1 meter per second. Therefore, in the worst case under the regulations this ship discharges 1 liter bilge water per second containing an oil drop of 1.7mm over a distance of 1 meter traveled. Since the actual oil content must be below the 5ppm limit and the ship's speed is typically above the 2KN mentioned, therefore a smaller "drop of oil" gets stretched further than the 1 meter mentioned.
I am quite comfortable stating that compliant bilge water discharges are not a pollution threat for the inland waters. Bilge water discharges are not point sources like refinery effluents or run-off from roadways and parking lots, or any other oil pollution from land based sources.
The regulations class oil and oily water as a pollutants that mustn't be discharged from a ship. Therefore, since the regulations authorize the treatment of oily bilge water, the effluent that falls within the regulated discharge requirements becomes then a discharge free of oil under the oil pollution prevention regulations.
How oil-free is then the 5ppm bilge water discharge from a ship? Are compliant bilge water discharges a pollution threat for the Great Lakes - Seaway system?
1 liter is a cube with sides of 100mm each, or equal to 1 Million cu.mm; therefore 1 cu.mm of oil in 1 liter of bilge water is 1ppm; 5ppm is one cube with sides of 1.7mm in 1 liter of bilge water. Which means that the upper limit for compliant bilge water discharges is a small drop of oil in 1 liter of bilge water. This quantity of oil is evenly dispersed in the effluent, in very fine droplets, too fine to coalesce into larger oil droplets to form visible pollution.
So not only do the regulations require fairly clean water, but in addition the ship has also to "make way".
Here is a quick calculation on "typical" worst case discharges from Canadian Lakers. One of the most common bilge separator sizes installed is a 16GPM system, which processes bilge water at about 3,600 liters per hour equal to 3.6 liters per second. A ship making way at 2 knots, the ship does 2 nautical miles per hour, equal to about 3.6km/hr or about 1 meter per second. Therefore, in the worst case under the regulations this ship discharges 1 liter bilge water per second containing an oil drop of 1.7mm over a distance of 1 meter traveled. Since the actual oil content must be below the 5ppm limit and the ship's speed is typically above the 2KN mentioned, therefore a smaller "drop of oil" gets stretched further than the 1 meter mentioned.
I am quite comfortable stating that compliant bilge water discharges are not a pollution threat for the inland waters. Bilge water discharges are not point sources like refinery effluents or run-off from roadways and parking lots, or any other oil pollution from land based sources.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Marine Fuel - 3
Not all crude oil is created equal, as it ranges from light-sweet crude to heavy crude oil; with some of the heaviest stuff coming from Cold Lake Alberta.
In the "good old days" oil was refined in topping refineries. This was (as I understand it) basically atmospheric refining, where light products were boiled off. With light crude the refiner got about 75% light product with 25% residual oil. With the shift to heavier crude oil refiners added complexity to the refining process, squeezing more light product from the feedstock. Valero gives a good overview of this evolution on their Quebec City refinery website. What is evident from their comments is that they are configuring this refinery for heavier crude oil.
Industry consensus is that the supply of light crude is shrinking. The peak oil theory is proposed by some and opposed by others. However, the continuing drive towards cleaner refined product requires increased complexity of the refining process, which eventually configures the refinery to be able to use heavy feedstock, including residual fuel. Valero's Corpus Christie refinery is such a refinery, capable of refining the heaviest (and residual) oils into light product, asphalt and petroleum coke.
The way I read it is that with the shift towards heavier feedstock the refiner needs to increase his ability to squeeze more light product from the heavier oil; he needs to increase the complexity of the refinery. Then he needs to remove more pollutants from the refined product to meet the tightening fuel quality standards; again increasing the complexity of the refining process. On top of that demand for refined product keeps rising, which the refiner needs to satisfy with increased yield from existing refineries. So that eventually he has upgraded from the Quebec refinery in 1981 to the Corpus Christie refinery of 2010, cutting residual oil from something like 25 - 30% down to 0%., leaving no base stock for marine fuel blending. While this Valero example shows the extreme case, the continuing shift towards heavier residuals globally confirms the theory. Let's face it, refiners will supply premium products longer than furnishing residuals for a discounted marine product, which means heavy fuel will disappear before we run out of gasoline and diesel.
In the "good old days" oil was refined in topping refineries. This was (as I understand it) basically atmospheric refining, where light products were boiled off. With light crude the refiner got about 75% light product with 25% residual oil. With the shift to heavier crude oil refiners added complexity to the refining process, squeezing more light product from the feedstock. Valero gives a good overview of this evolution on their Quebec City refinery website. What is evident from their comments is that they are configuring this refinery for heavier crude oil.
Industry consensus is that the supply of light crude is shrinking. The peak oil theory is proposed by some and opposed by others. However, the continuing drive towards cleaner refined product requires increased complexity of the refining process, which eventually configures the refinery to be able to use heavy feedstock, including residual fuel. Valero's Corpus Christie refinery is such a refinery, capable of refining the heaviest (and residual) oils into light product, asphalt and petroleum coke.
The way I read it is that with the shift towards heavier feedstock the refiner needs to increase his ability to squeeze more light product from the heavier oil; he needs to increase the complexity of the refinery. Then he needs to remove more pollutants from the refined product to meet the tightening fuel quality standards; again increasing the complexity of the refining process. On top of that demand for refined product keeps rising, which the refiner needs to satisfy with increased yield from existing refineries. So that eventually he has upgraded from the Quebec refinery in 1981 to the Corpus Christie refinery of 2010, cutting residual oil from something like 25 - 30% down to 0%., leaving no base stock for marine fuel blending. While this Valero example shows the extreme case, the continuing shift towards heavier residuals globally confirms the theory. Let's face it, refiners will supply premium products longer than furnishing residuals for a discounted marine product, which means heavy fuel will disappear before we run out of gasoline and diesel.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
MARPOL matters
IMO posted the biannual agenda of the DE Sub-Committee for 2012-2013. For the DE-56 meeting a total of 23 agenda items are listed, of which item 19 caught my eye.
Under 19 the "Revision of the Revised guidelines on implementation of effluent standards and performance tests for sewage treatment plants (resolution MEPC.159(55))" will be discussed. Target completion date for this task is 2012, suggesting that revised sewage regulations are in the works.
My friend, Dennis Bryant posted on his blog today the following from the USCG:
"The US Coast Guard issued a notice announcing that, in accordance with IMO Res. MEPC.191(60), the restrictions on discharges from ships in the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) special area (SA), as specified in MARPOL Annex V, Regulation 5, will come into effect on May 1, 2011. The WCR includes the Gulf of Mexico. Once the restrictions come into effect, no person may discharge, within the SA, garbage from a ship except (under limited conditions) food wastes. 76 Fed. Reg. 19380 (April 7, 2011).
Under 19 the "Revision of the Revised guidelines on implementation of effluent standards and performance tests for sewage treatment plants (resolution MEPC.159(55))" will be discussed. Target completion date for this task is 2012, suggesting that revised sewage regulations are in the works.
My friend, Dennis Bryant posted on his blog today the following from the USCG:
"The US Coast Guard issued a notice announcing that, in accordance with IMO Res. MEPC.191(60), the restrictions on discharges from ships in the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) special area (SA), as specified in MARPOL Annex V, Regulation 5, will come into effect on May 1, 2011. The WCR includes the Gulf of Mexico. Once the restrictions come into effect, no person may discharge, within the SA, garbage from a ship except (under limited conditions) food wastes. 76 Fed. Reg. 19380 (April 7, 2011).
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Marine Fuel - 2
Carrying on from last weeks comments on declining residual oil quantities.
The Globe and Mail published recently an article about the fact that heavy oil is gaining weight in energy markets, based on comments at the World Heavy Oil Congress in Edmonton, earlier this month. According to the experts, by 2030 heavy oil will make up 16 - 20% of the world total supply of oil, up from below 6% today.
Refineries, to process heavier oil, require to upgrade the refining process in order to get adequate quantities of refined product from the feedstock. The upgrade of the refining process results in lower quantities of residuals that are not suitable as base for marine fuel blending. They are too heavy and S-content is way too high to be used as base for IFO blending. As a rule of thumb, the S-content in the residual is typically more than twice the S-content of the feedstock.
The EIA charts show how residual declined, without a major shift towards heavier feedstock. Looking forward we'll need to factor in the increase in heavier feedstock as well as increased synthetic crude oil quantities.
The Globe and Mail published recently an article about the fact that heavy oil is gaining weight in energy markets, based on comments at the World Heavy Oil Congress in Edmonton, earlier this month. According to the experts, by 2030 heavy oil will make up 16 - 20% of the world total supply of oil, up from below 6% today.
Refineries, to process heavier oil, require to upgrade the refining process in order to get adequate quantities of refined product from the feedstock. The upgrade of the refining process results in lower quantities of residuals that are not suitable as base for marine fuel blending. They are too heavy and S-content is way too high to be used as base for IFO blending. As a rule of thumb, the S-content in the residual is typically more than twice the S-content of the feedstock.
The EIA charts show how residual declined, without a major shift towards heavier feedstock. Looking forward we'll need to factor in the increase in heavier feedstock as well as increased synthetic crude oil quantities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
