Single lubricant to meet ECA challenges

As shipping turns to slow steaming to reduce costs and faces increased emissions’ control measures, the process and challenge of procuring marine lubricants takes on greater complexity and significance. The North American ECA, effective from 2012, will impact 50% of international containership maritime traffic, forcing ship owners and operators not typically operating in ECAs to begin use of lower basicity cylinder lubricants required for lower sulphur fuels. This will pose challenges when entering and leaving ECAs, as lower base number (BN) lubricants are not suited or economically beneficial to operation with higher sulphur fuels permissible for use outside ECA boundaries.

Ship operators are under pressure to deliver against current and impending sulphur oxide (SOx) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) regulations, reduce bunker fuel costs through slow steaming; posing a significant conundrum when procuring marine lubricants. At the same time they need to maintain a clear competitive advantage through reliable, consistent operations and ensuring profitability. The industry therefore needed a new generation of marine lubricants that not only offer significant cost savings and better performance, but are also compatible with different levels of sulphur, and the demands of slow steaming. To address this Total Lubmarine has developed Talusia Universal – a new type of lubricant claimed to offer a “one step solution”.

Established in 2007, tanker operating group Navig8 initially leveraged the benefits of an existing relationship to fulfil its lubricants requirements. However when the European emissions control legislation came into force, the company realised that the majority of its vessels would be trading across ECAs and began to recognise the significant lubrication challenges posed by switching between high and low sulphur fuel.

“Switching fuels when entering and leaving ECAs is headache enough for the crew, without the associated cylinder oil requirements,” explains Roy Sugato, technical manager, Navig8. “The OEMs were telling us that unless the oil was changed within a certain period of time we would run the risk of scuffing.”

Good performance is essentially a matter of oxidation stability and detergency. With two-stroke engines, where the lubricant is injected into the combustion chamber, neutralisation of the acidic formation build-up during the combustion process is also essential. These acidic formations originate from the sulphur that is in the fuel, so a lubricant developed to match high levels of sulphur in the fuel cannot match a HFO bunker fuel with lower sulphur levels, or cleaner, distillate marine fuels.

Today’s OEMs recommend switching from one oil to another, depending on whether the vessel is using fuel with a high or a low level of sulphur. They advise using a BN 40 oil (low basicity lubricant) with a low sulphur HFO, and a high basicity BN 70 lubricant with a high sulphur HFO. This is because if there is an excess of basicity in the combustion chamber, increased levels of calcium carbonate result, producing hard deposits that lead to bore polishing.

When burning high sulphur fuels outside ECAs sulphuric acids are formed. This is even more pronounced when the vessel is slow steaming, making compatibility essential for an efficient BN lubricant, which many BN 70 lubricants are not.

“We’d heard about Talusia Universal, but repeated praise from associates in other companies already using the product prompted us to investigate in more detail,” says Sugato. “When we understood the significant benefits and discovered that the price was comparable to our existing lubricant, we decided to adopt it immediately on all our vessels.”

Total Lubmarine’s Talusia Universal is claimed to be the only lubricant compatible with fuel at all sulphur levels, meaning that the requirement to switch lubricants when moving in and out of an ECA is completely removed. Sugato explains: “Our technical crew was a little sceptical of the product at first, as there is nothing similar on the market and the OEMs had advised that the lube must be changed to protect the engine. However the technical information from Lubmarine, supported by testimonies from the various OEMs reassured them. And close monitoring over the initial months demonstrated that the product negated all of the challenges we were facing.”

Risk management is one of the foundations of Navig8’s business and is a key factor in the company’s decision making process. Talusia Universal ensures that the engine is safeguarded against corrosion - regardless of the sulphur content or vessel speed. It reduces the potential of human error and the time required to switch at ECA entry and departure points, as well as saving storage space and the additional cost of installing additional cylinder oil tanks and pipelines.

Critical to reliable, consistent operations, lube oil requires significant investment. “Lubricants consume between 50-60% of the technical budget, and as such is not something we can afford to get wrong,” surmises Sugato. “We are so confident of Talusia Universal that we use it on all 21 of our vessels.”

By 2015, 90% of the world’s container routes will involve ECA transits. Reassuringly, says Total, lubricants such as Talusia Universal will continue to provide ship owners and operators with a one-step solution for managing ECA transitions.