Ships set to burn raw crude oil to beat new clean fuel rules

FILE – In this July 21, 2019, file photo, a speedboat of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard moves around a British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero, which was seized on Friday by the Guard, in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. A ship-tracking website shows a British-flagged oil tanker held by Iran since July moving for the first time in weeks. The movement of the Stena Impero on Tuesday, Sept. 24, comes after a government spokesman in Iran on Monday said legal proceedings against the vessel had concluded.(Hasan Shirvani/Mizan News Agency via AP, File)
INTERNATIONAL – For almost three years, the oil industry has been puzzling over how to supply merchant ships with fuel that will meet tough new environmental standards.
Turns out part of the solution was sitting in the ground and under ocean floors all the while: crude oil.
Oil from off the U.K.’s coast, which requires blending — but no refining — before being used as a ship fuel, is now being marketed as just that. Similar crudes from places like West Africa and Australia can also be used with little modification. Suitable supplies are ideally low in sulfur and not too flammable.

Source: iol.co.za