World Bunkering >Articles > Fuel management > Meters go mainstream

The bunker metering business has come a long way since the first trial Coriolis meters were installed in 2007. BP carried out initial trials using the Foxboro Coriolis meter in Singapore. In the same year, a Coriolis meter manufactured by Endress & Hauser was installed on the Super Star Virgo, also in Singapore. The meter system was welcomed enthusiastically by the shipowner, which said that the system had performed beyond their expectations. “It helps us to achieve better efficiency and avoid any more disputes with our bunker suppliers,” said the ship’s chief engineer at the time.

The first mainstream adoption of onboard fuel metering by a shipowner came just over a year ago, when Maersk made headlines by announcing that Coriolis flow meters would be introduced on some 50 vessels in its fleet, which were to be fitted with fuel metering systems provided by Emerson, in order to cut down on short deliveries. The aim was, ultimately, to install flow meters across the entire fleet. “We would like all suppliers to have flow meters on their barges, but we don’t see that happening for a long time, if ever,” said Maersk’s business development manager, Claus Moller Peterson.

It may indeed be a long time before all suppliers have flow meters, but some have already begun to install meter systems, both for their own convenience and to provide principals with a further guarantee of quality and quantity. In the US, for example, Buffalo Marine Service, based in Houston, announced in July that it would be installing the Nautical Control Solutions FuelTrax measurement system, which it said would provide real-time metered measurement of bunker fuel deliveries irrespective of product type, viscosity, or temperature. The first bunker delivery using the meter system was made in Houston August 2009 – somewhat ironically, to the Maersk Wyoming; 1,500 tonnes of MGO 500 was delivered, with a meter measuring accuracy to less than 0.1%, between the barge and the ship. Accuracy was verified by Maersk Wyoming’s own in-line mass flow meter.

“FuelTrax pays vast dividends for our customers. They are provided with real-time bunker delivery tickets from an extremely accurate metering system. This removes any doubts on who received what. The precise measurement in barrels and metric tons, top-notch record keeping, and ease of operation complements Buffalo Marine’s goal of exceeding our customers’ expectations,” said Pat Studdert, president of Buffalo Marine.

“We are very pleased to announce Buffalo as our first bunker system customer,” said Anthony George, CEO of NCS. “We expect that, as bunkering accuracy increases across the industry, quantity disputes will decrease around the globe. It’s a win-win situation for the bunker suppliers and vessel owners.”

However, this is by no means the first use of flow meters by a bunker company. Stena Oil has had flow meters fitted on all its barges for the last 15 years. As a result, says bunker manager Fredrik Laliberté, Stena has had hardly any quantity disputes in this time, and those that there have been are very easy to settle. It is “a bit strange,” he says, that the rest of the industry has not taken to flow meters. “The metering system works well, and always has – it allows you to be very transparent.”