You can't make this stuf up. A Holy-wood script writer couldn't either.

From Downstreamer forum: ***********

Russian Fuel Oil Blamed for European Bunker Fuel Contaminatio

Friday February 4th 2000, 10:58 AM Russian Fuel Oil Blamed for European Bunker Fuel Contamination

By Bruce McMahon, Bridge News

Poor quality Russian fuel oil exports have been blamed for the contamination of ships taking on bunker fuel in recent weeks at the Belgian ports of Ghent and Antwerp, European fuel oiltraders said Friday. The contamination, caused by polypropylene particles, causes filters in engine vessels to clog.

International marine fuels analysis company Lintec warned that polypropylene contamination has been identified in as many as 22 vessels of marine fuel that loaded out of Antwerp and Ghent in the second half of January.

European fuel oil traders said that the problem of polypropylene contamination occurred last year in batches of oil from Russia, and that the same problem may have resurfaced in January.

"What happened last time is that fuel oil was kept in giant pools in Russia and became contaminated with water," said a spokesman for Lintec. "To separate the water from oil,polypropylene was added. When the oil and water separated, traces of polypropylene remained."

The spokesman added that this may only be one cause of contamination, and that the exact origin of the present problem is not identifiable.

Some traders said that contamination could have occurred as a result of blending fuel.

"Marine fuels get blended and therefore the problem need not have originated from Russia," said one trader.

-- paul leblanc (bronyaur@gis.net), February 06, 2000

Answers

This is a bad one.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), February 06, 2000.

Duuuh, what is "bunker fuel"?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), February 06, 2000.

I believe 'bunker fuel' is #6 oil which is heavy and must be heated to remain liquid. It is used in power plants here and also burned aboard tankers as fuel and as a means of keeping the oils hot enough to offload once they are in the destination port.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), February 06, 2000.

Bunker oil is used as fuel in almost all oceangoing cargo vessels. If there is a widespread problem with bunker oil contamination, it will cause widespread problems with international trade.

Got a stockpile of everything you use that's imported or is made from imported materials? Don't you wish everyone did?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 06, 2000.

See Paula Gordon's contribution on the following thread:

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002VUL

[snip]...

"According to an authoritative source, companies producing fuel additives, base chemical producers, complex hydrocarbon solvent producers, and nuclear power plants are among those likely to be most vulnerable (and in many cases) are among those proving to be vulnerable to Y2K and embedded system-related problems.

According to a software engineer familiar with the situation, the airplane fuel problem in Australia involved the sticking of a valve and inaccurate computer data."

[end snip]

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), February 07, 2000.