The maritime industry faced serious challenges over the past decade: global economic woes, overcapacity, crewing and fuel costs. To that list of concerns, the past three years added main-grade lubricants and especially cylinder oil! While major ports offer a complete range of main-grade and minor lubricants, more remote locations pose unique problems to both the supplier and the vessel operator.
The marine lubricant supplier has to make choices as to inventory and the availability of different grades, and thus is challenged to carefully manage his supply chain. In addition, the global economy can cause ship operators to shift routes and erase demand the supplier had counted upon. In turn, the shipper likely faces extended lead times, high pricing, unavailability of entire grades or even limitations regarding available volumes.
Recent practices – like slow-steaming, changes in design of slow-speed propulsion diesels aimed at fuel efficiency, and the expansion of Emission Control Areas to reduce pollution – further exacerbate the situation. Some of these issues were outlined effectively in a recent presentation by Caroline Huot of UniMarine Lubricants, as covered in Februarys LubesnGreases (see Avast Opportunity, page 20). Engines today may require not only multiple grades of fuels, but also multiple cylinder oils, or CLO, ranging from low base number types for use with low sulfur fuels, to formulations with BN values exceeding 100 to avoid cold corrosion with higher-sulfur fuels.
Because cylinder lubrication is a total-loss system consuming large volumes in daily operation, these new necessities not only pose a problem regarding available tankage and added inventory on board vessels, but certain grades of CLO might simply not be available in sufficient quantities in certain ports.
One solution the marine industry pursued is the development and use of a universal cylinder oil. This would be a mid-range BN formulation suited for a wide range of fuel types, for as long as the CLO feed rate is adjusted appropriately.
Another solution was independently developed by shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk and ExxonMobil; this idea involves recycling used system oil at regular intervals and blending it into a variable-BN CLO on board the vessel. This blending-on-board system offers reduced inventories and less need for onboard tankage, except for a comparatively low volume of a suitable additive package to blend the correct CLO. It also keeps the system oil quality near-pristine at all times, reduces wear, and eases the need for proper disposal.
This environmentally acceptable solution, however, requires every vessel to be fitted with its own blending system approved by the respective marine certification society. It also requires a rather substantial capital investment, especially when retrofitting existing vessels; thus wider acceptance has been slow. Lukoil Marine currently offers this concept as a green solution under the trade name iCOLube.
Centralized or Decentralized?
Throughout my career, the maritime industry has never failed to demonstrate its need for novel and cost-effective solutions – while at the same time being conservative about adopting solutions that may become available as a result. This hesitancy can be seen when proposing scrubbers as a means of emission mitigation, real-time monitoring and diagnostics as a means of asset health management, or blending of lubricants on board a vessel. Thus, the present CLO challenge serves as yet another classic example of the dilemma faced when trying to reconcile the original engine manufacturer requirements, lubricant availability (particularly for those vessels not regularly calling at major ports), required investments in additional tankage or blending equipment, proof of payback, necessary monitoring equipment to assure blended CLO quality, concerns about crew training … the list goes on and on.
What if these concerns could be mitigated by merely advancing the onboard blending system and adapting it to effectively blend all mineral oil based lubricants required on a vessel, at those sites and ports where availability, inventory, costs and relating price are issues to both suppliers and operators? This could be accomplished by combining known blending technology with a novel business model, where the supplier offers the vessel operator credit for off-loaded used system oil meeting certain specifications. In return, the ship operator could receive fresh system oil and a largely price-adjusted CLO, of a composition and volume tailored to the needs of the respective vessel.
Such an arrangement, under a multiyear contract, could offer security of price and supply to both buyer and seller. Couldnt the concept serve ports like Ponta da Madeira in Brazil for dry-bulk iron ore vessels, or Balboa and Coln for vessels awaiting transit through the Panama Canal, or Hong Kong, the Canary Islands and West Africa oil and gas support operations? It would provide product flexibility, shorter advance notification, reduced inventories and increased competitiveness.
Todays lubricant blending operations mostly use the traditional approach of a land-based blend plant with fixed minimum and maximum volumes, geared toward large operations with rapid product turnover and short delivery distances. This is ideally suited to large and predictable volume supplies and works well, even for the maritime industry, in key port areas such as Singapore or Western Europe. Yet it limits operations at the 600+ ports in more remote locations, especially those with small volumes beyond the main grades.
Alternatively, a distributed, containerized lubricant blend system in port would require minimum real estate and tank storage only for base oils. Additives can be stored in totes or intermediate bulk containers, and finished fluids can be blended to order or just in time into a delivery vessel (barge, tanktruck, ISO-tainer or flexibag) or into drums and pails. Similar to distributed power generation, this novel model takes advantage of drastically reduced capital outlay, inventory and operating costs, yet maximizes flexibility of operations whilst providing the ability to produce from two drums to 10 cubic meters of bulk finished lubricants per hour.
Of course, this distributed lubricant manufacturing system must include all necessary instrumentation, processes and documentation for stringent product quality assurance. Samples of all batches produced would need to be analyzed and certified using largely automated and ruggedized analytical equipment, which has become widely available and affordable over the past years. All formulations are coded into operational algorithms where the operator only dials a product code and desired finished lubricant quantity, connects the appropriate input streams, and the system automatically executes the specific tasks. (An example of such a system is the trademarked InnoBlend concept, shown in Figure 1.)
Taking it further, we envision this flexible blending system could be integrated into a delivery vessel wherever feasible. This would allow two modes of operations:
1. Originally, all conventional blending of finished fluids and particularly cylinder oils, from base stocks and suited additive packages, would continue and just be moved on-board a suitable, modified barge (see Fig. 2, upper right barge scenario).
2. Then, at a second stage, cylinder lubricants would be blended from used system oil, instead of Group I or II base stocks. The vessel operator will obtain a credit for the spent system oil, while at the same time the material will be turned into a cylinder oil on board the delivery barge – which might at the same time bring fuel and/or other services. Of course, the vessel also might dispose of slop oil waste and have it turned into an environmentally acceptable marine fuel as well as disposing of any residue according to local regulations (per Fig. 2, lower right barge scenario).
Now, what type of delivery vessel is required for this type of operation? We see three options:
Option one would be a delivery barge for cylinder oil, system oil and trunk piston engine oil. On board the barge would be the containerized blending system, plus all controls and quality assurance equipment; it could carry secondary-grade additive packages in IBCs.
Option two, detailed in Figure 3, would carry all the same containerized blend system and product supply capabilities as Option one, but with the addition of a tank to hold used system oil offloaded from the vessels being served.
Both of the above would use double-hulled vessels in the 600 to 1,800 gross tonnage range, depending upon port size, operations and off-port-limit delivery requirements.
Option three expands on this to create a combined fuels and InnoBlend-generated lubricants product tanker. Essentially this is a considerably larger version of the above-described vessels, providing for additional bunker fuels and longer station holding; e.g. a platform supply vessel or a product tanker depending upon the region, distance to be covered, and clients. For areas where youd find both oil and gas production operations and large deep offshore tanker terminal operations, such as the Gulf of Mexico, a product tanker of some 20,000 to 30,000 gross tons would likely be the most economical arrangement. It could remain in a delivery loop for up to four weeks at a time, meeting its clients lubricant and fuel requirements while offering all other necessary supplies and discharges.
Opportunity, Expanded
The above technology can resolve many issues faced in industry today, for both suppliers and vessel operators alike. Rest-of-world ports would become less of a nightmare in terms of lead times, availability and cost as well as being able to offer non-marine lubricants. Transportation and inventory costs are largely reduced while shipping companies can rest assured that they are being supplied according to their needs.
This concept could expand beyond the ports and vessels, too. As in the aforementioned Ponta da Madeira example, high-quality lubricants could be produced in a cost-efficient manner for both marine vessels and for the locomotives hauling the ore to port, even with the latter requiring zinc-free formulations.
Needless to mention, other remote locations requiring timely availability and delivery of lubricants could become more flexible and independent; e.g. large mines or distributed power generation operations in remote locations utilizing heavy-duty diesel equipment. This will enable fundamental cost reductions for these and similar operations – whether in the Arctic regions, the High Andes, Western Australia or Papua New Guinea.
Klaus-Werner Damm is founder and president of InnoTech LLC in Virginia Beach, Va., which specializes in the technical aspects of petrochemicals, chemicals, engineering and analytics, and serves clients in heavy industry (maritime, power generation, oil & gas, railroad, mining and construction), food, cosmetics and other fields. He has more than 30 years of experience in business development, marketing and sales and R&D. For information,e-mail kwdamm@innotechserv.net or phone (757) 333-6489.