Lloyd's Register has witnessed a new method of turning conventional bunkers into IMO 2020-compliant low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO).
US technology company Genoil has developed a hydro-conversion upgrader (GHU) that cuts the sulphur content from 1.72% to 0.38%.
It uses fixed-bed reactor technology and can be built alongside existing refinery infrastructure in major bunkering hubs.
Muhammad Usman, Lloyd’s Register product manager for its fuel oil bunker analysis and advisory service, said: "Although LR did not have full visibility of the technical approach used by Genoil’s process or demonstration and was not present throughout, the sample analysed from the output sample of the demonstration was 0.38% m/m, in comparison to the feedstock used for the process which was stated to be an ISO-F-RMG380 fuel with sulphur content of 1.7% m/m.”
Genoil CEO David Lifschultz added that the test was an significant step in proving that there is a less expensive means of ensuing compliance with 2020 regulations that doesn’t require paying a large premium for distillate fuels, or investing millions of dollars of capital, which may never see full payback, in scrubber technology or LNG.
"And because the GHU produces fuel with the same properties of heavy fuel oil minus the sulphur content, it also reduces the risk of engine damage, which so many in the industry are concerned with in relation to new hybrid distillate products,” he said.
The conventional fuel was sourced in Rotterdam.
