Viswa Lab uncovers tainted bunker fuel in Southeast Asia

In the last two weeks the presence of organic chlorides has been identified in 4 cases of fuels bunkered in South East Asia, announced Dr. Vis of Viswa Lab.  The organic chlorides were present at levels of 23 ppm to 56 ppm. The chemicals found were 1‐1‐2 Trichloroethylene, Tetrachloroethylene, 1‐2 Dichloroethylene, Chlorobenzene, and Chloroform.

“Organic chlorides have been known to cause serious problems to marine machinery even at very low levels, as low as 5 ppm,” stated Dr. Vis, CEO of Viswa Group. “In one instance, Viswa Lab detected 56 ppm of organic chlorides and the entire onboard machinery including fuel pumps and cylinders suffered serious damage requiring expensive replacement.”

Organic chlorides are used as cleaning agents by the dry-cleaning industry and other chemical cleaning such as air cooler cleaning.

The industry recognizes the harmful effect of the presence of organic chlorides. Refineries such as Valero and Tesoro do not accept crude oils containing more than 5 ppm of organic chlorides. This has long been the rule for most refineries. Capline system (operated by Shell Pipeline Company), which transport millions of tons of petroleum products through its pipelines, has also specified a limit of 5 ppm for organic chlorides.

Organic chlorides are not substances expected to be present in bunker fuel and therefore, the fuel can be declared out of spec for ISO 8217 (vide para 5.1 of ISO 8217).