A UK company with a background in the Venezuelan oil industry is developing a marine fuel blend that cuts emissions by up to 30% in existing ships' engines — and will have been tested by the two biggest container lines.
Quadrise first demonstrated a marine version of an oil-in-water emulsion fuel that was cheaper and cleaner than heavy fuel oil in 2012.
Its Multiphase Superfine Atomised Residue (MSAR) fuel is produced using 70% oil residues with 29% water and less than 1% of chemical additives. It gives a claimed 5% to 9% cut in CO2, through energy efficiency benefits of 6% to 9%.
The lure of cheaper, cleaner bunkers was sufficient for Maersk to engage in full-scale tests with two containerships in 2016-2017.
A newer biofuel version, bioMSAR, promising 20% to 30% greenhouse gas reductions, is set to be tested next year by Mediterranean Shipping Co.
bioMSAR will use renewable glycerine in refinery residues, at 40% to 50% levels, with 10% water and 1% additives. Burnt in a conventional two-stroke engine, it can achieve GHG reductions similar to LNG.
But oil-in-water emulsion fuels are not new, according to Quadrise chief executive Jason Miles.
Their development, and the genesis of Quadrise, began in the late 1980s in a joint venture between BP and Petroleos de Venezuela, which wanted to monetise the Orinoco bitumen the country had in vast quantities in its heavy crude oilfields.
The venture came up with Orimulsion, which was exported from a 100,000-barrel-per-day production facility as a competitor to coal and fuel oil for burning by power generators in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
After the Venezuelan oil industry declined following the election of Hugo Chavez as president in the early 2000s, the technology was repurposed to create similar fuels in other heavy crude-producing parts of the world, such as Saudi Arabia.
Since then, 150,000 hours of oil-in-water fuel use have been racked up in power stations' four-stroke Wartsila diesel engines, and Quadrise has accumulated 60m tonnes of emulsion experience.
In 2014, proof of concept testing on MSAR was carried out for Maersk on two ships: the 4,500-teu Seago Istanbul (built 2007) with a Wartsila 12 RT-Flex96C-B engine; and the 3,100-teu Maersk Bogor (built 2009) with a MAN B&W 7K80ME-C9 engine.
Two years later, the Seago Istanbul undertook operational trials using 7,000 tonnes of MSAR produced at Cepsa's Gibraltar-San Roque Refinery. However, the tests coincided with the International Maritime Organization's decision to bring in the IMO 2020 move to very low-sulphur fuel oil, and Maersk's bunker strategy shifted.
"Maersk had a view that MSAR had a part to play when you could utilise high-sulphur fuel and scrubbers, but after the IMO decision it chose to run on low-sulphur fuel," Miles said.
Soon after IMO 2020, the debate around marine fuels switched to decarbonisation. It led to Quadrise looking for waste molecules that are considered to be renewable and could be applicable to shipping, but not competing sectors such as aviation and road transport or food production, according to Miles.
Quadrise discovered that glycerine, a non-toxic by-product of mainly fatty acid and alcohol production, could be distilled to create a fuel grade that can compete on emission reductions with LNG — and bioMSAR was born.
In basic terms, bioMSAR replaces most of the water in MSAR with increasing amounts of glycerine — itself water-soluble — to make greater CO2 savings of 26% to 28% over conventional fuels in the latest tests.
"We can put the ingredients in our Nutribullet and out comes an emulsion smoothie of biofuel," Miles said.
"The key thing is we have done this before commercially, not just in a laboratory. We know how stable the emulsion needs to be to be fit for purpose for the marine sector — putting it through a pipeline or a major pump, under pressure in a diesel engine and injected at over 200 BAR."
Five tonnes of bioMSAR have been tested on a Wartsila four-stroke engine by VTT in Finland, and discussions are underway with equipment manufacturers and Cyprus-based MSC Shipmanagement to begin vessel testing in 2022.
A production deal with a refinery, potentially in Rotterdam, also needs to be agreed for about 15,000 tonnes per vessel over six months of trials. Quadrise already has two blending units that Miles said can be installed in a refinery in less than 12 months at a cost of about $5m to supply 10 to 15 boxships.
With water comprising 30% of MSAR and 10% of bioMSAR, the fuels are cheaper than conventional fuel oils as long as the cost of crude glycerine and additives, supplied by Nouryon (formerly AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals), are less than other distillates used to produce bunkers.
At current prices MSAR is about 20% cheaper than heavy fuel oil (HFO) at the refinery gates, Quadrise chief Jason Miles said, but provides a similar calorific energy value of 38-39 gigajoules per tonne compared with 40-41 gigajoules per tonne for HFO.
Distilled glycerine also needs to be cheaper per unit of energy than competing biofuel alternatives, such as FAME and HVO, but Miles said a 10% reduction on current prices of $1,800 to $2,000 per tonne makes a considerable saving when blending up to 40%.
Quadrise has partnered Aquafuel, a company that converts generators from diesel to 100% glycerine and has developed its use in Formula E car racing. Glycerine has a similar calorific value to methanol.
