Bunker fuel quality issues continue to persist in the industry, even as fuel management is set to become more critical, ahead of the International Maritime Organization’s, or IMO, January 2020 low sulfur global marine fuels mandate, sources at an industry event in Singapore said this week. “In the 1990’s marine fuel was just a straightforward product really, it was blended to meet viscosity requirements…fast forward and it is no longer about viscosity,” Douglas Raitt, regional consultancy manager at bunker fuel analysis and advisory service firm Lloyd’s Register FOBAS, said at a forum organized by the Association of Bunker Industry (Singapore). “It’s about sulfur and when you start blending for sulfur, basically the viscosity and a whole host of other parameters become collateral damage,” he said. Come 2020, shipowners or operators buying the fuel will need to have a greater know-how for understanding what exactly they are going […]