One of our customers – a shipping company, faced the need of fuel and lubricants costs reduction and fuel theft prevention. As a result of implementing vessel fuel monitoring by Technoton, operating and maintenance costs were cut by 50%.
Let’s go step by step through the project and see how it was solved.
The Machinery
“Kriushi” dry-cargo vessels (and other boats) with four cargo compartments and a superstructure on stern. Vessel’s length is 94 meters, carrying capacity – 2000 tons, fuel tanks volume – 50 tons, crew – 9 people.
Main Task to be solved
Used fuel was accounted using calculation method – ship crew fills in trip statements taking in account approved fuel consumption quotas. Fleet owner considered those quotas were too high.
The task was to implement vessel fuel monitoring system that would provide accurate information on instant and total fuel consumption of each fuel consumer (vessel engine, diesel generator, boiler) in real time.
The Solution
Fuel monitoring system of diesel units includes 5x DFM fuel flow meters with CAN j1939/S6 interface and 1x Galileosky Glonass/GPS v.5.0. telematics unit. All equipment is operated over S6 Technology.
DFM 250CCAN flow meters are mounted into fuel lines of main engines. DFM 100CCAN are mounted into fuel lines of diesel generators and boiler.
The tracking device receives the following data from fuel flow meters via CAN/S6 interface:
- instant fuel consumption of every engine,
- total fuel consumption of every engine,
- operation time of every engine.
Also, tracking device receives additional data – fuel temperature and engine speed (from tachometer).
Information from the tracking device is sent to dispatch service’s computer, so they can see ship location and fuel consumption data in real time. All data is available on a virtual dashboard of ORF4 telematics service. Dashboard’s flexible interface allows to display data in any convenient form: charts, figures, arrow indicators, scales.
Why DFM fuel flow meters?
- Precise fuel measurement no matter how intensive fuel “bounces” inside tanks/cisterns.
- 40+ parameters of fuel consumption and operating time of fuel consumer.
- Built-in battery, independence from external power supply.
- Multilevel protection against tampering and interference.
The Result
Based on information about operation modes (engine speed, temperature) and fuel consumption of every engine, it became possible to define real average fuel consumption.
The effect of the implementation of vessel fuel monitoring system
- Real fuel consumption turned out to be two times lower than regulatory documentation states.
- Total costs for purchasing and mounting paid off twice during the first trip.
- Fuel theft is completely excluded.
