Operator Sees Potential for "Huge" Bunker Savings on its Larger Vessels

Bill Metcalf, VP of Strategic Engineering at Crowley Maritime, says CAT's Asset Intelligence software could be used to glean bunker savings on larger vessels.

Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) says Crowley Maritime Corporation (Crowley), which is installing Cat Asset Intelligence software on its Guide tugboat, sees a "huge" potential for bunker savings should the technology be installed on the company's larger vessels.

CAT says the custom vessel monitoring and diagnostics solution, which will monitor the Crowley vessel's main engines, generators, thrusters, and critcal systems 24/7, is also functional for "fuel and energy performance analytics enable fuel and energy optimisation."

Currently, Crowley is using the technology to provide "early warning of a catastrophic failure" in order to mitigate any problems through early maintenance, but says that it will be analysing the software's performance on Guide in order to assess the possibility of installing the technology on other vessels within its fleet.

"It's a robust system that does all the key monitoring and analysis we need," said Bill Metcalf, Vice President of Strategic Engineering for Crowley, adding that while the software is not being used to improve fuel efficiency on Guide, "it could be huge for our larger vessels."

"We're looking at it as the next level of management and optimisation, and we want to see how it can help us increase reliability, safety and efficiency onboard our vessels."

CAT explains that the solution utilises automated data capture, analysing each piece of equipment to provide management reports to Crowley via the Caterpillar Marine Asset Intelligence team.

In August, Caterpillar Marine announced that it was working on a dual fuel engine retrofit conversion for Furetank Rederi A/B's 472 foot tanker, Fure West, and will be supplying the complete gas system for the tanker, including bunker stations, two liquid natural gas (LNG) tanks, and the vaporizer.