{"id":393,"date":"2016-09-09T08:34:52","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T08:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/?p=393"},"modified":"2016-09-09T08:36:01","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T08:36:01","slug":"bunkering-for-those-planning-to-become-marine-engineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/2016\/09\/09\/bunkering-for-those-planning-to-become-marine-engineers\/","title":{"rendered":"Bunkering \u2013 for those planning to become marine engineers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"bunkers_3\"

The UniCal bunker tankers Fumana and Southern Venture bunkering the cruise ship Queen Mary<\/em> in Durban. Photograph : Grindrod<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Bunkering of fuel, fuel segregation, preparation and fuel management.<\/h4>\n

Bunkering large volumes of highly-polluting fuel-, hydraulic- and lubricating-oils is a high-risk activity, particularly when being received at a high rate of hundreds or thousands of tons per hour. Overflowing tanks or ruptured hoses because the wrong valves were opened or closed would be a disaster of nightmare proportions. Spilling a cupful of oil into Sydney harbour could attract a jail sentence and \/ or arrest of the ship. The operation has to be carefully planned, managed and supervised against a check-list by a senior Engineer Officer.<\/p>\n

Differing grades of fuels (high- and low-viscosity, high- and low-sulphur content) require segregated storage, different treatment (centrifuging and filtration) different heating – or no heating at all – and are used for different applications. Less expensive high-sulphur fuels are banned in certain sea areas (e.g. the Baltic) and in many ports and coastal seas world-wide (e.g. Californian waters). This requires timely change-over from high- to low-sulphur fuels to meet rule requirements but without waste of the more costly low-sulphur fuel. Heavy fines are levied, or ships even arrested, for failure to change over to low-sulphur fuel, or to change over too late. If the temperature of the fuel to which change-over is being made is not similar to the temperature of the fuel on which the plant is currently running, the engines could lose power \/ speed or stop altogether resulting in loss of propulsion and if the generator engines are also so affected, loss of electrical main power. Until the emergency generator starts automatically, steering and most lighting will also be temporarily lost. This could have disastrous consequences. Fuel Management is of critical importance.<\/p>\n

Preparation of the fuel involves continuous filtration to remove solid impurities, centrifuging and clarification to remove fine carbon and soot particles and moisture, and heating to the required temperature. The filtration and centrifuging\/clarification produce large quantities of waste sludge on an on-going basis. This is collected in sludge tanks and is either disposed of in bulk to approved shore reception facilities where they exist, or is incinerated in the ship\u2019s specialist high temperature incinerator. Accurate records of sludge produced and method of disposal have to be meticulously maintained and are subject to inspection by port state inspectors.<\/p>\n

Bunkering in bulk of lubricating- and hydraulic oils, and treatment of oils.<\/h4>\n

See above comment regarding bunkering.<\/p>\n

A number of different oil grades and types are used on a large vessel. Usually the largest bulk quantities are for the main engine crank-case (so-called \u201csystem\u201d oil), and special (very costly) oil used to lubricate the cylinders. The system oil is a large quantity which circulates continuously through the engine\u2019s moving parts and normally remains clean. The cylinder oil is injected in metred quantities into each individual cylinder to lubricate the piston rings and cylinder liners. It is burnt with the fuel. Low-sulphur fuel requires a different type of cylinder oil to that for high-sulphur fuel. Consequently when changing from one fuel grade to another, the cylinder oil grade has to be simultaneously changed over. This differs somewhat on ships equipped with so-called \u201cmedium-speed, trunk-piston\u201d engines which use one grade of lubricating oil for all purposes. Such engines are popular on smaller craft on the one hand, specialist ships like dredgers, heavy-lift and offshore support ships, and cruise-ships on the other hand, which generally are propelled by electric motors powered by a group of powerful medium-speed generator engines.<\/p>\n

Some ship types use a large volume of hydraulic oil of different grades. Many modern oil tankers have hydraulically-powered cargo (and ballast) pumps submerged in wells in the bottom of the tanks. The hydraulics are pressurised by a hydraulic power-station in a dedicated compartment in the engine room. A large volume of hydraulic oil is in use in the system, with a full charge held in reserve and for top-up. This oil must be maintained in impeccable condition, free of any foreign matter or moisture which would otherwise very quickly ruin the precision-engineered hydraulic pumps and hydraulic motors. This oil is therefore also filtered and centrifuged in similar manner to that of fuel and lubricating oil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bunkering of fuel, fuel segregation, preparation and fuel management. Bunkering large volumes of highly-polluting fuel-, hydraulic- and lubricating-oils is a high-risk activity, particularly when being received at a high rate of hundreds or thousands of tons per hour. Overflowing tanks or ruptured hoses because the wrong valves were opened or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-11-2-2-ship-operations","category-11-2-2-8-bunkering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}