Contaminated fuels in Singapore increase marine fuel inquiries in UAE

Namely, six samples of ship fuel in Singapore had caused severe sludging at centrifuges, clogged pipelines, and overwhelmed fuel filters. The first problem sample in Asia was found on April 13 in Port Kelang in Malaysia, which led to a dead ship that had to be towed back to port with all fuel pumps damaged.

This contaminated fuel can damage ship engines, and many of the vessels with this fuel needed extensive flushing and repair before being starting operation again.

This situation has led to a domino of developments. Specifically, because shippers want to avoid loading up the contaminated fuel Singapore, UAE inquiries at the Fujairah oil hub for marine fuel have increased recently, Reuters reported.

This comes despite the sharp decline in marine fuel sales over the past year, after the Qatari diplomatic crisis in June 2017. However, it seems that Fujairah is still among the top global bunkering hubs.

Nevertheless, Fujairah has been impacted as well. In fact, its marine fuel sales have decreased to an average of about 600,000-700,000 tonnes per month in 2018, compared to 1 million tonnes in the first half of 2017.

On the other hand, Singapore, the top shipping centre according to the International Shipping Centre Development (ISCD) Index, sold more than 4.2 million tonnes of ship fuels per month in 2017.