West of England bunker fuel quality advisory service

December 17, 2020

The Quality of bunker fuel is an essential factor which can have a profound impact on the vessel, company operations and may have long-reaching P&I liability consequence. Information about bunker quality is extremely valuable to the vessel and company.

The introduction of the Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil (VLSFO) type into the family of the existing fuel grades, following the 2020 changes to MARPOL Annex VI, has made the picture even more diverse than before.

West of England has joined forces with Veritas Petroleum Services (VPS) – a market leader in marine fuel testing, data, and intelligence services – to provide a unique set of statistics based entirely on bunker fuel sample analysis results obtained by VPS.

Information on important fuel quality parameters such as viscosity, density, sulphur content, instability, etc. are derived from observed average values, as well as off-specification occurrences. The information can readily be seen for the 10 top bunkering ports (by volume) within West’s global information portal Neptune. The statistics are updated every two weeks. Please note however that Neptune is only available to current Members of the Club, their brokers and listed correspondents.

Additionally, similar information can be provided for any port, where VPS has received samples from, upon request to the Loss Prevention Department (loss.prevention@westpandi.com).

VPS also publishes regular Bunker Alerts whenever an adverse fuel quality trend is identified in a specific port or geographical area. The Bunker Alerts highlight a specific parameter, that is raising concerns and making an impact on fuel quality. The Bunker Alerts are available for the Club members and can be found within the Neptune portal.

The service is private and confidential and is available for the Club’s members only. Information from VPS must not be shared publicly in any format.