Busting maritime myths with Pacific International Lines

ExxonMobil Marine recently got together with Iftekar Zaman Habib Mohammad, Head of Fleet Technical, and Yong Yao Hui, Vessel Manager, at Pacific International Lines (PIL), to bust some stubborn marine industry myths and misconceptions.  

They started with a look at slow steaming.

Slow steaming issues are all in the past... right?

Slow steaming can reduce the temperature within a marine two-stroke engine’s cylinders to below the dew point of the combustion gases, allowing water to condense on the cylinder liner walls. That condensate can combine with a fuel’s sulphur content to form sulphuric acid – corroding the surface of liners and creating excessive wear of the liner material. 

Today, low sulphur fuels dominate so does that mean we no longer need to worry about the effects of slow steaming? Sadly, that’s not the case.

Low load operations can also create conditions in large bore engines that can result in blow-by – the passage of combustion gases past the piston rings, which can decrease overall engine efficiency and result in a build-up of damaging deposits. Slow steaming can still cause problems. 

Knowing what’s happening inside your engine is as important as it ever was. We recommend that vessel operators should regularly carry out a combination of scavenge port inspection with scrape down analysis. 
 
Click here to watch the video
 
And stay tuned to our social media channels for future instalments of our myth buster series.