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Why hasn't the Escape left?

klfhngr

By klfhngr,
in Norwegian Cruise Line

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chengkp75

chengkp75

Posted
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Unusual to do an immigration check for crew, in the middle of a home port season, isn't it?

When a ship first starts its home port season, especially if coming off a transatlantic, it may receive the 'triple whammy' of a full USCG safety inspection, a USPH inspection, and the immigration inspection....

 

While that is a time to get a triple inspection as you say, they will normally break it down a bit and reschedule either the USCG or USPH to the next turn around. Immigration can't wait. And the ship undergoes this full immigration check for crew every 3 months, so not that unusual.

 

As for delays in fueling, there could be any number of reasons, most beyond the ship's control. The tug/barge could have had a mechanical problem, the oil terminal could have had a problem when loading the barge, the barge could have been delayed at the last ship it was bunkering, lots of things. As to the ship only going to Bermuda, we don't know when she bunkered last, to know how much fuel she has remaining, and how much fuel she is taking. Due to the nature of residual fuel, you do not just "fill up the tank" like you do in your car by pumping new fuel on top of a different load of fuel. Mixing residual fuel can result in major problems for the engines or the engineering staff, and can lead to blackouts and loss of propulsion, so the ship will always fuel only to empty tanks, and the number of tanks, their size, and the fuel consumption of the route will all determine how many tanks are bunkered each time, so the quantity of fuel each cruise can vary a lot.

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Laszlo

Laszlo

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While that is a time to get a triple inspection as you say, they will normally break it down a bit and reschedule either the USCG or USPH to the next turn around. Immigration can't wait. And the ship undergoes this full immigration check for crew every 3 months, so not that unusual.

 

As for delays in fueling, there could be any number of reasons, most beyond the ship's control. The tug/barge could have had a mechanical problem, the oil terminal could have had a problem when loading the barge, the barge could have been delayed at the last ship it was bunkering, lots of things. As to the ship only going to Bermuda, we don't know when she bunkered last, to know how much fuel she has remaining, and how much fuel she is taking. Due to the nature of residual fuel, you do not just "fill up the tank" like you do in your car by pumping new fuel on top of a different load of fuel. Mixing residual fuel can result in major problems for the engines or the engineering staff, and can lead to blackouts and loss of propulsion, so the ship will always fuel only to empty tanks, and the number of tanks, their size, and the fuel consumption of the route will all determine how many tanks are bunkered each time, so the quantity of fuel each cruise can vary a lot.

 

On my first cruise on the Escape I did the behind the scenes tour. They had a member of the engineering staff with us. He was saying how their are 12-14 fuel tanks on board feed by 4 main manifolds. They have enough fuel on board to travel for 21 days

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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On my first cruise on the Escape I did the behind the scenes tour. They had a member of the engineering staff with us. He was saying how their are 12-14 fuel tanks on board feed by 4 main manifolds. They have enough fuel on board to travel for 21 days

 

The amount of fuel seems about right, the number of tanks is somewhat high, but that may include "non-storage" tanks (tanks that are filled from the storage tanks, and that feed either through the fuel treatment plant to the "service" tanks, or the service tanks themselves, which feed directly to the engines), which are not filled when bunkering. They may also have some dedicated diesel fuel tanks for use when the scrubbers are down. Even so, I would expect about 8-10 residual fuel storage tanks, each about 500-700 tons capacity each. They will try to keep all tanks full, as much as possible, but slow steaming or bad weather can affect fuel consumption up or down, so there will nearly always be a variable number of tanks to fill each cruise. You also have to keep the new fuel you just bunkered separated and not use it until it has been analysed by a third party for problems, which can take a few days.

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Laszlo

Laszlo

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You also have to keep the new fuel you just bunkered separated and not use it until it has been analysed by a third party for problems, which can take a few days.

 

Interesting, is that done onboard the ship or does NCL send that out to a local person?

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welove2cruise2014

welove2cruise2014

Posted
Posted
When were on the ncl spirit in 2010 out of Boston we were scheduled to leave port at 4 pm. Did not leave until after 8 pm. No announcements made. Never found out why we were delayed.
Happened to us once, scheduled for 4p departure, left close to 8... but made for some truly amazing twilight shots of the city skyline!!

 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

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YVRBassElectric

YVRBassElectric

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The amount of fuel seems about right, the number of tanks is somewhat high, but that may include "non-storage" tanks (tanks that are filled from the storage tanks, and that feed either through the fuel treatment plant to the "service" tanks, or the service tanks themselves, which feed directly to the engines), which are not filled when bunkering. They may also have some dedicated diesel fuel tanks for use when the scrubbers are down. Even so, I would expect about 8-10 residual fuel storage tanks, each about 500-700 tons capacity each. They will try to keep all tanks full, as much as possible, but slow steaming or bad weather can affect fuel consumption up or down, so there will nearly always be a variable number of tanks to fill each cruise. You also have to keep the new fuel you just bunkered separated and not use it until it has been analysed by a third party for problems, which can take a few days.

 

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience! If I understood the Chief Engineer on the Bliss correctly, they used the same fuel in Southampton, New York & Miami, different for open ocean, Caribbean, California & Alaska all to comply with different emissions standards. Your explanation helped me understand how.

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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Thanks for taking the time to share your experience! If I understood the Chief Engineer on the Bliss correctly, they used the same fuel in Southampton, New York & Miami, different for open ocean, Caribbean, California & Alaska all to comply with different emissions standards. Your explanation helped me understand how.

 

Well, here's the straight dope on using different fuels. There are Emission Control Areas (ECA's) established around the world where the allowable sulfur emissions are greatly reduced, and require either burning of low sulfur diesel fuel (similar to automotive diesel or home heating oil) rather than the heavy residual fuel the ship normally burns, or the use of exhaust gas scrubbers to remove pollutants when burning residual fuel in those ECA's. Either is acceptable, the scrubbers are up front capital expense, but saves on every ton of fuel, while burning diesel is more expensive, but no up front cost.

 

These ECA's currently are the North Sea, the Baltic, when actually in all EU ports, and the North American ECA, which extends 200 miles out from the entire North American continent (US and Canada), and the Hawaiian islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. So, if the Bliss does not have scrubbers, then they need to burn diesel fuel when in these areas (Southampton, New York, Miami as you noted, but also Alaska and California and some areas of the Caribbean) and residual fuel in the rest of the world. Also, California, as usual, has adopted their own ECA, which predated the North American ECA, and which to date has not accepted use of scrubbers in place of burning low sulfur diesel fuel.

 

The medium speed diesels used on cruise ships are quite adept at burning either diesel or residual fuel, it is just the "pre-treatment" that is different. Residual fuel needs to be heated to about 430-460*F and pressurized to 100 psi and supplied to the engine, while diesel fuel only needs to be pressurized. In the engine, the fuel is pressurized again, to 5000 psi to inject into the engine. Heating the residual fuel gets it to a viscosity near the diesel fuel, so it atomizes correctly for proper combustion. Residual fuel also needs more purification and filtering than diesel fuel to remove the crud left over from the refinery.

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bob brown

bob brown

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Curious about the apparent complication's of using different fuels....

Approximately what is the difference in cost per gallon or however they are measured?

And do they have the same thermal efficiency, as in 'mpg' or however that is measured?

 

What about some newbuilds using LPG or other 'clean' fuels?

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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Curious about the apparent complication's of using different fuels....

Approximately what is the difference in cost per gallon or however they are measured?

And do they have the same thermal efficiency, as in 'mpg' or however that is measured?

 

What about some newbuilds using LPG or other 'clean' fuels?

 

While I'm not a petrochemical engineer, I've had some introduction to the chemistry of fuels, and their practical application. Crude oils are of two basic types; parafinic or aliphatic. Now, remember what marine residual fuel is: once a refinery has extracted as much "light" refined product (gasoline, diesel, kerosene, jet, lube oils) as it can (about 65% of each barrel of crude), what is left over is marine residual fuel. So, it has all the bad characteristics of the crude oil it came from. Now, when you mix two residual fuels that came from two different crude oil types, you have a problem with "compatibility". In order to get the fuel ready for burning in a diesel, you first heat it to about 200*F and spin it in a centrifuge to remove solid and abrasive particles left from the crude oil and the refining process. This heating and centrifuging can cause the two disparate fuel stocks to form large wax molecules, or long chain hydrocarbon molecules (floculating), which will plug up the centrifuge, and fuel filters, and not become small enough molecules to be injected and burned correctly. When this happens, you generally either catch it in time, or you "lose the plant" (blackout) due to fuel starvation or other problem with the engines fuel pumps and injectors. At that time, you have to flush out the entire fuel system, segregate the fuel, and try to get it pumped off back to the fuel supplier. All of which costs a lot of money, and time, and time out of service.

 

The latest price for marine fuels in Houston, a benchmark port for the US:

 

IFO 380 (marine residual fuel): $419.50/metric ton

MGO (marine gas oil, or #2 diesel): $677.00/metric ton

 

Now, to look at the "specific energy" of fuel (the amount of energy per unit of weight), it gets a little complicated. Fuel is purchased by weight (metric ton), and specific energy is measured in megajoules/kilogram (MJ/kg) (sorry, we use the metric system), but the engine only cares about the volume of fuel injected to get a specific horsepower output, so you need to factor in the density of the fuels as well.

 

I could do some lengthy calculations, but suffice it to say that for the same energy output, the cost spread between residual fuel and diesel is about the same as the price per ton difference.

 

As for LNG, the specific energy is fairly close to liquid fuels, about 45 MJ/kg, but its density is about 450 kg/m3, and the latest bunker price for LNG in Vancouver (the only spot price I could find in N. America) is $240/metric ton for the same energy as one metric ton of residual fuel. So, if the infrastructure problems can be solved, at least in the US market, LNG is significantly cheaper, but it takes a lot more volume of tankage to store the same energy as residual fuel onboard (or more frequent bunkering, and hence more infrastructure issues in more ports) and the tanks require special placement in the hull of the ship and extra space for reliquifaction equipment to take the normal "boil off" as the LNG absorbs heat from the hull and cools and compresses it back into a liquid to keep from losing that energy.

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bob brown

bob brown

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While I'm not a petrochemical engineer, I've had some introduction to the chemistry of fuels, and their practical application. Crude oils are of two basic types; parafinic or aliphatic. Now, remember what marine residual fuel is: once a refinery has extracted as much "light" refined product (gasoline, diesel, kerosene, jet, lube oils) as it can (about 65% of each barrel of crude), what is left over is marine residual fuel. So, it has all the bad characteristics of the crude oil it came from. Now, when you mix two residual fuels that came from two different crude oil types, you have a problem with "compatibility". In order to get the fuel ready for burning in a diesel, you first heat it to about 200*F and spin it in a centrifuge to remove solid and abrasive particles left from the crude oil and the refining process. This heating and centrifuging can cause the two disparate fuel stocks to form large wax molecules, or long chain hydrocarbon molecules (floculating), which will plug up the centrifuge, and fuel filters, and not become small enough molecules to be injected and burned correctly. When this happens, you generally either catch it in time, or you "lose the plant" (blackout) due to fuel starvation or other problem with the engines fuel pumps and injectors. At that time, you have to flush out the entire fuel system, segregate the fuel, and try to get it pumped off back to the fuel supplier. All of which costs a lot of money, and time, and time out of service.

 

The latest price for marine fuels in Houston, a benchmark port for the US:

 

IFO 380 (marine residual fuel): $419.50/metric ton

MGO (marine gas oil, or #2 diesel): $677.00/metric ton

 

Now, to look at the "specific energy" of fuel (the amount of energy per unit of weight), it gets a little complicated. Fuel is purchased by weight (metric ton), and specific energy is measured in megajoules/kilogram (MJ/kg) (sorry, we use the metric system), but the engine only cares about the volume of fuel injected to get a specific horsepower output, so you need to factor in the density of the fuels as well.

 

I could do some lengthy calculations, but suffice it to say that for the same energy output, the cost spread between residual fuel and diesel is about the same as the price per ton difference.

 

As for LNG, the specific energy is fairly close to liquid fuels, about 45 MJ/kg, but its density is about 450 kg/m3, and the latest bunker price for LNG in Vancouver (the only spot price I could find in N. America) is $240/metric ton for the same energy as one metric ton of residual fuel. So, if the infrastructure problems can be solved, at least in the US market, LNG is significantly cheaper, but it takes a lot more volume of tankage to store the same energy as residual fuel onboard (or more frequent bunkering, and hence more infrastructure issues in more ports) and the tanks require special placement in the hull of the ship and extra space for reliquifaction equipment to take the normal "boil off" as the LNG absorbs heat from the hull and cools and compresses it back into a liquid to keep from losing that energy.

For not being a "petrochemical engineer", you sure do seem to know an awful lot on the subject. I think (not sure), what you are saying is that as far as energy costs, the heavier fuel is approximately 50% cheaper? Did I understand that correctly?

And that the LNG that some newbuilds are employing, is even more cost efficient, although harder to obtain and store?

 

I came across this article of interest... https://e360.yale.edu/features/at-last-the-shipping-industry-begins-cleaning-up-its-dirty-fuels

 

And this... https://www.ship-technology.com/features/carnivals-lng-fleet-ushering-new-generation-cruise-ships/

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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For not being a "petrochemical engineer", you sure do seem to know an awful lot on the subject. I think (not sure), what you are saying is that as far as energy costs, the heavier fuel is approximately 50% cheaper? Did I understand that correctly?

And that the LNG that some newbuilds are employing, is even more cost efficient, although harder to obtain and store?

 

I came across this article of interest... https://e360.yale.edu/features/at-last-the-shipping-industry-begins-cleaning-up-its-dirty-fuels

 

And this... https://www.ship-technology.com/features/carnivals-lng-fleet-ushering-new-generation-cruise-ships/

 

Yes, residual fuel is cheaper, which is why scrubbers are attractive alternatives. With the 2020 upcoming worldwide limits on sulfur content in fuel, which can still be met by low sulfur residual fuel (which is more expensive, and harder to obtain currently) exhaust scrubbers remain an attractive alternative, as the payback period is about 5-6 years (the scrubbers cost about $1-1.5 million per engine, plus installation cost).

 

What most folks don't understand is why there is marine residual fuel in the first place. It is not because it is some cheap product that profit hungry shipping companies decided to use. Most refineries in the world can only refine about 65% of each barrel of crude oil into refined product, and what remains they cannot do anything with, and have no use for. That unwanted leftover is marine residual fuel oil. In years past, this byproduct was found to be useful in steam boilers, both in power plants and ships. As diesels took over marine propulsion, it was found that with the right pre-treatment it could be burned in diesel engines. Power plants transitioned from residual fuel in the US for pollution reasons (along with having inexpensive alternatives), but there are many power plants still burning residual fuel around the world (including Puerto Rico). If ships stop buying residual fuel oil, what are refineries to do with this end product? First off, if they can't make a profit on it, it will drive up the cost of the refined products they do get from crude. Next, they have to make a decision of whether to pay to have this shipped from their refinery that can't do anything with it to a refinery that can, and that cost will drive up refined product prices. Or, they can invest the millions (billions?) necessary to upgrade from a 2nd generation refinery to a 3rd generation refinery. 3rd generation refineries can refine 95% of each barrel of crude into refined product, and be left with solid coke as the byproduct, and coke has a market in steel production.

 

As for LNG, in North America, yes, it is more cost effective simply on fuel cost, slightly less so in Europe, and actually at a cost disadvantage in Asia, due to less availability over there. But, the upfront capital costs of storing and handling LNG on ships somewhat moderates the cost savings. While Carnival has moved to alleviate the LNG infrastructure problem by partnering with Shell to build an LNG bunker barge, that is only one barge for their fleet, and I don't know if it will be exclusive to Carnival, or whether Shell can use it for other companies. Also, while the barge can get the product to the ship, there is the problem of liquifaction of natural gas to load onto the barge. Jacksonville has a facility that can handle some of this, though it is owned by Crowley, and their ships will have first call on its capacity. Not sure if Shell is planning on a new facility, but the next closest facility to the cruising "homeland" is the Cheniere facility in Port Arthur, Texas. So, there could be some bottlenecking on where the LNG comes from, until even more is invested in infrastructure. And given the amount of volume needed to be stored on the ship to equate to residual fuel capacity, and the fact that the ships are not bigger than previous ships, that means they will have more limited range, or require LNG fueling capability at outlying ports of call, which again is more money for infrastructure.

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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Bliss engineer said scrubbers would be used in Alaska (required?) LNG is a supply issue in NA (not surprised that Vancouver has it available, my hometown), chengkp75 thanks spending your time here!

 

Alaska is no different than the rest of the North American ECA, and scrubbers or low sulfur diesel is required within 200 nm of the N. American coastline. Except, of course, California, where scrubbers are not yet accepted as an alternative to diesel.

 

LNG is primarily available in Vancouver for the BC Ferries. There are currently only about 30 LNG powered vessels in service worldwide. Shell is planning on another liquifaction plant in Sarnia, Ontario, to supply the Great Lakes.

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styme123

styme123

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Hi guys. Just got off the escape today. The reason for the delay was a USPH inspection and a full crew immigration check. Even though it was delayed, we still got to Bermuda on time. It was a great time!

Hope you had a great time:DWe just got off the week before.

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vacation44

vacation44

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Hi guys. Just got off the escape today. The reason for the delay was a USPH inspection and a full crew immigration check. Even though it was delayed, we still got to Bermuda on time. It was a great time!

 

Thank you for updating this thread with the correct answer.

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chengkp75

chengkp75

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Hi guys. Just got off the escape today. The reason for the delay was a USPH inspection and a full crew immigration check. Even though it was delayed, we still got to Bermuda on time. It was a great time!

 

While both things were being accomplished at the same time, the only thing that caused the delay was the CBP screening of the crew. USPH inspections are designed to not interfere with normal operations, and in fact require normal operations and have to include a meal service during the inspection. On the other hand, the CBP screening takes whole sections of the crew away from work to wait in line to see the CBP agents.

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myra711

myra711

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Posted
So far I have heard three reasons:

(1) Delayed fueling

(2) US Public Health Inspection-- time consuming

(3) Full Immigration Check for staff-- very time consuming

 

Public Health inspection was last Sunday; I was told that it happens every 6 months.

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