time2roll wrote:
Those ships have at least three options. Low sulfur diesel, install scrubbers, or convert to natural gas. I agree that the additional cost to ship the fuel will increase the world prices. Refining capacity could be squeezed for some time as lower sulfur fuel is required. How much effect on price is anyone's guess. Supply side changes could mute the entire thing or could add additional pressure independent of the transport fueling issues.
Our fleet moved out of the business because they couldn't afford the scrubbers and LNG was not a viable option. Personally to stay in the business I would have gone with new builds using LNG.
Someone asked a question about how much diesel was being used - to put it in perspective our ship carried 100 metric tons to go 2000 nm. 100mt = 26,417 gal
There are approx 4500 ships around the globe carrying that much as fuel and more. Not including the super tankers. The USCG issued a warning on IFO380 bunker fuel as being contaminated. We had to re-polish our entire tank farm in Singapore last year. https://worldmaritimenews.com/archives/257924/report-contaminated-bunker-fuel-found-in-singapore/
And, to answer the question - fuel prices will go up, not down. Right now domestic fuel prices are within 50 cents of where they were last year in most of the western USA. Eastern USA is seeing prices within a quarter of 2017.
