Page 25: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2013)
Ship Repair & Conversion
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the cost will be different if the instal- lation is done during the drydock or while the ship sails. Roughly, the in- stallation would be couple of tens of thousands. What are the maintenance factors? With our EFS, the mainte- nance requirements are a minimum. The only moving part of the system is the HP water pump that requires scheduled maintenance every six months. The key part of our system and also the key innovation in Emul-sified Fuel technology is our Emul-sifier that has no moving parts. The advantage compared to more conven-tional type homogenizer is that there is no wear and tear of the mechani-cal moving parts. The performance will not deteriorate. We have taken our emulsifier apart after over a year of operation and found that wear and tear were negligible when critical parts were sent to metrological labo-ratory for inspections. Our EFS is a total system. We have not only con- sidered the performance of the system and ease of installation but also the ease of operation is important. The system is fully automated and fail safe with safety interlock built in. If there is an alarm, the EFS will shot down automatically and revert to the normal fuel oil service system.With increasing fuel costs and tight- ening environmental regulations, the guarantee of 3% fuel savings and NOx reduction would seeming- ly make installation of the system a ?no-brainer?. That said, what are the most common objections you hear, and how are they overcome. The urgent need for fuel sav- ing solutions has also increased the number of companies and people coming to market with claims of fuel savings. Some are credible but too many are not. Ship owners are care-ful. Emulsified fuel technology has also had a bad reputation. Not enough research work has been done to fully understand what kind of emulsion achieves fuel savings, not to mention how to produce that kind of emulsion reliably and consistently. Ship owners are also concerned if there?s any damage to the engine condition, even though engine manu-facturers already accept water in fuel emulsion as an alternative fuel. Fur- thermore, MAN, for example, has stated that their FWE ?has proven not to affect the reliability of the engine,? after running some years. We have also surveyed the engine condition on our each reference after 6k hours and found no adverse effect on the en- gine condition. In fact we have found that the engine parts are cleaner. With our latest reference, a Cruise Liner, the engine manufacture has surveyed the condition of the engine and found no ?show-stoppers.? The ship owner continues to run our Emulsified Fuel System after over a year now and con-tinue to save fuel.Also, the verifications of actual fuel savings at sea is a very delicate tasks that require deep experience and care-ful planning. Based on our experi-ence, there is a lack of expertise in this area. The common experience to date is measuring of specific fuel con-sumption to ISO standards of +/- 3% deviation but not in measuring of % fuel efficiency improvement of the or- der of a few %. It is obvious that it is not possible to measure % fuel savings of a few % reliably and accurately by relying on a methodology that have permissible deviation of specific fuel consumption of +/- 3%. Ship owners demand a methodology that they can trust. Ship owners confidence have been lost over the years specifically because % savings declared were not trusted. At BOS, we have the experi- ence and methodology that can prove to ship owners the % savings achieved reliably and accurately. What are the advantages of being a subsidiary of Keppel Offshore & Marine? Keppel?s strategy is Near Market, Near Customer. With global network of 20 yards and offices, cus- tomers is assured of excellent techni-cal and service support backed by a strong and reliable reputation. Are there size limitations as to where the system can be installed? There are no size limitations. Our Emulsified Fuel System can be installed to a new engine, old en-gine, small or large, medium and slow speed. What do you consider to be the big- gest challenge(s) to having your solution more widely adopted throughout the maritime industry? The biggest challenge is to deliver fuel savings to ship owners (according to ISO standards) that are reliable, dependable and trusted and which are verifiable by independent third party, and without any adverse effects to the diesel engine. There are no short cuts and these require careful planning and time. We started in late 2010 with installation in late 2011. We are now at the point of deliver- ing such trusted results. Cost-benefits is not a challenge because the ROI is well below the commonly expected 3 years. In fact, at current equipment cost versus fuel savings, the ROI is well below 1-1.5 years. Dr. Jerry Ng Kok Loon The founder and CEO of Blue Ocean Solutions, Dr. Jerry Ng Kok Loon is one of the indus-try?s leading experts within emulsified fuel technology. He graduated with a Marine Engi-neering degree from the Uni-versity of Newcastle upon Tyne and then worked with Prof RV Thompson on the applications of emulsified fuel to marine diesel engines as a research assistant in the 1980?s while working on his doctorate degree. He continued his research work in emulsi-fied fuel system at the Nanyang Technological University in Sin- gapore with the support of the National Science Council and Neptune Orient Lines. Currently, Dr. Jerry has two patents with several pending on emulsified fuel technology. Blue Ocean References - Wärtsilä, Hercules Project Medium speed engine, 2-stage miller cycle using MGO- Cruise Liner, HQ in USA Medium speed engine using HFO, MDO- B&I, Connaught RoRo Ferry, medium speed engine using HFO- Townsend Thoresen, Spirit of Free Enterprise RoRo Ferry, medium speed engine using HFO- London Overseas Freight- ers, MV London Viscount Bulk Carrier, slow speed engine using HFO- NOL, Neptune Crystal Container, slow speed engine using HFOWWW.MARINELINK.COM 25The baseline (0% water) is the red curve. The black, blue and purple curves are SFOC of the engine when using 10% water emulsiÞ ed fuel. The chart clearly shows signiÞ cant fuel savings since all the SFOC curves when using emulsiÞ ed fuel are below the red baseline curve. MR #1 (18-25).indd 25MR #1 (18-25).indd 251/2/2013 11:01:42 AM1/2/2013 11:01:42 AM