Contaminated bunker fuel has been found in Singapore, with a local marine fuel surveyor warning clients that samples of marine fuel had resulted in severe sludging at centrifuges, clogged pipelines and overwhelmed fuel filters.
Marine fuel surveyor and consulting firm Maritec said the test results of the six samples seems to point to both Estonian type oil shale and US type fracked shale oil being sold into Singapore, Reuters reported.
“Fuels from Singapore are exported to all ASEAN countries and even all the way to Hong Kong,” Maritec said. It should be expected that the whole region would be affected, the surveyor said.
The first contaminated sample in Asia emerged on 13 April in Port Kelang in Malaysia, resulting in a “dead ship” that was towed back to port from off the coast of Vietnam with all fuel pumps damaged, said Maritec.
“The problem fuel fully met the ISO8217:2005 specifications in all respects but was found to contain chemicals not from petroleum refining,” Maritec said.
This news follows previous reports of contaminated fuel affecting up to 80 ships by bad bunker fuel loaded in Houston.
At least two cargoes of the contaminated fuel oil of 270,000 tonnes each, were shipped into Singapore over the past month, and have contributed to an increase in bunker prices as the availability of on-spec fuels has tightened, Reuters said.
TradeWinds had earlier reported about the difficulty in detecting contaminated bunker fuels.
