The International Council on Clean Transportation says that a clean-up operation in the Arctic resulting from a residual fuel oil spill would cost seven times more per tonne than a spill of distillate fuel.
The cost of such an oil spill would outweigh the economic advantages of operating on such fuels. According to the ICCT, there might be immediate economic advantages to using residual fuels, but even a small spill would result in a higher cost that the savings gained by operating on such fuels.
In a report just published, the ICCT examines the economic and environmental trade-offs of using HFO, distillate fuel and liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic.
The ICCT says that overall operating costs will largely be determined by fuel costs in 2020 but the risk of an oil spill and its associated costs are much higher than often realised.
Using 2015 fuel prices, the report states that HFO would cost approximately US $22,441 per tonne to clean up. 0.5% and below sulphur residual fuel would cost around US $16,841, whereas distillate would be as little as US $3,055/tonne.
With HFO costing around US $434/tonne to purchase and distillate at US $674/tonne, distillate is much higher initially. However, some distillate fuel fraction will evaporate, which reduces the total amount of fuel in the water and in turn the overall clean-up costs.
The price of LNG is likely to remain lower than HFO and distillate fuel, but ships would need to be converted and this would increase the initial investment. Although it doesn’t contain the same sulphur and nitrogen oxides as HFO does, methane slip is an additional environmental concern.
Biofuels, other alternative fuels such as methanol, and fuel cells are a possibility but have not been developed in the same way as distillate, residuals fuels and LNG and have limited use.
The report indicates that policy alternatives, such as prohibiting the use of petroleum-based fuel oil in the Arctic and prohibiting HFO, desulfurized residual fuel, or residual fuel blends is the way forward.
In order to protect the Arctic long-term no petroleum-based fuel oil should be used, but banning HFO and residual/desulphurised residual fuel oil would offer immediate advantages. In particular this would avoid the costs of clean-up operations, which have exceeded US $100 million per incident in recent decades, and is also far more than the cost associated with prohibiting HFO or 0.5% residual fuel.
Fathom-News
editor@fathom-mi.com
