The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) has released the preliminary findings of its investigation into allegedly contaminated marine fuel supplied to several ships by the world's largest bunkering centre.
In addition, the problem of fuel oil also appeared at the port of Houston.
According to a previous report by Xinde Maritime Network
VPS, a fuel testing agency, said in a notice on March 31 that between February and March this year alone, the company detected 34 ships that had encountered problem fuel in Singapore. What's more, the agency also stated that nearly half of the ships suffered from fuel system failures after bunkering with contaminated fuel, resulting in "loss of power and propulsion". creating a blackout). Specifically, so far, these marine fuel oil pollution has brought different degrees of fuel system failures to 14 ships, and further led to more serious ship-wide power outages and loss of power.
According to MPA, the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore
It received a notice on March 14 that the fuel oil bunkered by multiple ships at the Singapore port contained high concentrations of chlorinated organic compounds (COC) (1,2-dichloroethane, tetrachloroethylene) Chlorinated Organic Compounds (COC). ) (1,2-Dichloroethane, Tetrachloroethylene).
MPA means, After an investigation into the contamination revealed that the fuel was a blend supplied by Glencore Singapore Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of commodities trading giant Glencore International, the company notified MPA after receiving reports of contamination of its fuel and proceeded to carry out testing.
However, when the fuel was identified and tested, some of it had already been sold to PetroChina International (Singapore) Pte Ltd (PetroChina), which also bunkered some of its client ships in Singapore.
According to MPA statistics, this batch of fuel oil in question has been bunkered to about 200 ships at the port of Singapore through Glencore and PetroChina. About 80 of these ships reported varying degrees of problems with the ships' fuel pumps and engines.
The MPA also tested fuel samples from some of the affected ships and found elevated levels of COC in their fuel samples.
MPA said ,This is the first incident of fuel pollution caused by high concentrations of COC reported in Singapore in the past 20 years.
