Compatibility Questions Remain as ISO Assures Current ISO8217 Standard OK for IMO 2020 0.5%S Bunker Blends

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Tuesday July 17, 2018

The current ISO8217 specification for marine fuel adequately covers the new breed of 0.50% max sulfur bunker fuels being developed for the upcoming IMO 2020 global sulfur cap from January 1, 2020.

That is the message today from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in a statement released after concerns were raised over potential issues with the new fuels, particularly in regard to their safety and onboard handling.

The matter was a key discussion point during an IMO working group meeting last week.

ISO today has assured that the current ISO 8217 specification for marine fuel will cover the 0.50% fuels in the same way it addresses 0.10% sulfur emissions control area (ECA) fuels, but acknowledged more could be done when it came to understanding whether such fuels are capable of being commingled.

"In view of recent concerns, ISO's confirmation that no revision of the standards is needed prior to 2020 is very welcome as is ISO's recognition that existing tools to assess compatibility are inadequate and its reassurance that ISO is actively seeking solutions before the 2020 deadline," said Peter Hinchliffe, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS).

"It will be vital for shipowners and crews to have confidence that new fuels will indeed be safe and compatible before taking delivery, which they will need to start doing several months in advance of January 2020."

Compatibility

As with the emergence of the so-called hybrid ECA fuels, also known as heavy-distillates or ultra-low sulfur fuel oil (ULSFO), the issue is not that ISO 8217 is not applicable to them but that the specification was developed with different fuels compositions in mind.

"The downside of these new ECA fuels is that they do not comfortably fit into the current ISO 8217 marine fuel specifications forcing the fuel buyer to compromise in the selection of the most suitable specification for ordering and comparison," VPS' Georgios Sigalas has previously explained.

And while it has always been the case that unusable fuel can result from the mixing of two bunker cargos that are perfectly within ISO 8217 specs, the hybrid-ECA fuels are particularly sensitive to commingling and compatibility is dependent on characteristics not captured by the ISO 8217 specification.

When it comes to the IMO 2020 fuels, ISO is working on a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) that "will provide guidance as to the application of the existing ISO 8217 standard to such fuel oils" but today confirmed that "at this time no new characteristic is currently being considered for inclusion."

"Compatibility between different fuels cannot be guaranteed by the suppliers and it falls on the competency of the crew to manage this. Recognising that some degree of mixing of different fuel oils onboard the ship cannot be avoided, many ships today have already procedures in place to minimise commingling of fuel oils with bunker segregation being always the first option and are encouraged to evaluate further their segregation policy," ISO stated.

That said, ISO says its ISO 8217 working group has also "initiated a test program to investigate whether test methods currently not yet widely used for marine fuel stability testing, can provide further and consistent information on the stability and potential instability of a wide range of different fuel blend formulations (or mixtures thereof) that are anticipated to likely represent what will be available in the market from late 2019."

ISO's full statement can be found here: https://shipandbunker.com/news/world/482202-iso-statement-on-iso-8217-and-imo-2020-050-sulphur-fuels