Bunker Fuel Is A Petroleum Product Unlike Any Other

| Wednesday, March 7, 2012
By Jane C. Sirois


If you are going to be in charge of performing any duty that involves bunker fuel, there is much that you should understand about what it is, where it comes from, and the various things it is used for. Since it is not a very widely used substance, most people know very little about it, but if anyone who intends to be working with it should know everything about it.

Bunker fuel is just one of many of the substances that you get when crude oil is broken down, and it is later placed in a specific classification based on its properties. There are oil rigs and platforms all over the planet whose single purpose is to extract crude oil from beneath the ground and ship it to a refinery so that it can be broken down into a variety of substances with different boiling points. The entire process of breaking down crude oil calls for a lot of work and a lot of very advanced equipment, because separating a substance such as crude oil is not something you could do in your kitchen sink.

Each substance found in crude oil comes with a different boiling point, so heating the crude oil will produce many layers of individual substances. At the very top, you would find the most combustible of all the fuels, such as those used to power fast moving vehicles, such as jets and racecars. As you go down, you will come across substances that have higher boiling points, like what is used for engine oil and other industrial lubricants, and at the very bottom you will find a very dense and viscous substance known as bunker fuel.

As previously mentioned, this substance falls into a number of different classifications, and this is because it can contain a number of different chemicals and contaminants that cannot be removed, making it not ideal for every intended use. Every one of these individual classifications comes with a set of pros and cons that determine how they should be used, but one disadvantage that they all share in common is the fact that they are extremely polluting - more so than any other petroleum product in use today.

Since it is so dense and will not burn without first being heated, bunker fuel can only really be used in engines that are incredibly large. This is precisely why the main place that you would find such fuels being used is in large ocean going vessels with the room to contain and prepare it prior to feeding it into the engines.




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