RIGA TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Course “European Dimension”

Individual Assignment

Bilge water Processing Technologies and Supply Chain in Finland

Academic Master Study programme

“Logistics and Supply Chain Management”
Student of the 1-st study year
Tommi Veromaa

Supervisor of the Study Work:: Prof. Jelena Pecherska / Prof. Yuri Merkurjievs

Riga 2017
Table of contents

1. Introduction 3
2. Background 3
a. Legislation 3
3. Bilge water sources 4
a. Bilge water creation and characteristics 5
i. With and without separation units 6-7
b. Yearly bilge- and sludgewater reserves in Finnish ports 7
c. Reserving possibilities in areas 7
4. Market situation of the end product in Finland 8
a. Recycled fuel oil consumers 9
5. Processing bilge water and the production of the end product 9
6. Logistics of bilge water in Finland 9-10
a. Supply chain and processing of bilge water 10
7. Future of bilge water industry 11
8. Conclusions 11
9. References & Sources 13
 1. Introduction

This essay or study introduces the sources for bilge water in ports in Finland along with
potential consumers of the end product recycled fuel oil. Recycled fuel oil is produced from
bilge water that is pumped from ships and processed through many stages within the
waste processing facilities. Logistics of bilge water collection and the supply chain in
Finland is explained using two commonly used methods for bilge water collection. There
are discussions about the possibilities to use recycled fuel oil to replace heavy fuel oils in
private companies processes, all of this to aim decreasing the excess production of fossil
fuels that are used to run the i.e production or refining processes in steel- and mineral
industries.

2. Background

The world is in battle to tackle the climate change and pollution problem and most of this is
caused by emission and pollution created by fossil fuels both in the land and sea. The idea
of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy or ableing the re-use of some of the fossil
fuels used in vessels or ships has lead countries and companies to work together to re-use
the fuels within ships. In Finland the goverment has launched many regulations towards
the safe containing of wastes generated especially within cargo ships. Companies that use
fossil fuels are also willing to use more and more recycled fuel oil in their processes as it
boosts the company image as a company that takes social- and environmental
responsibility in trying to reduce emissions.

a. Legislation

The finnish department of traffic safety TraFi regulations require bilge- and wastewaters
produced in ships to be delivered to the port facilities. TraFi monitors the success of
regulations and other relevant regulations by publishing information of wastes produced in
ships and monitors the further processing of these wastes. This national regulation is
based on Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission HELCOMs regulation about
mandatory delivery of wastes, this has been taken into use in 1998 according to the
recommendations and as a directive 2000/59/EC in port reception facilities that will collect
wastes produced within ships and in the cargo (TraFi 2013).
All operating ships before their departure in Finnish ports have to deliver wastes produced
in ships and cargo to the receiving facility within the port that according to MARPOL- and
1992-Helsinki treaties should not be laid into the sea (TraFi 2013).

The regulation of mandatorily delivered wastes:

- Oil wastes from the machinery and cargo bay.
- Bilgwater, whether the ship doesn’t have bilgewater separation equipment
or if the ship operates in areas where bilgewater separation is not used.
- Cargo wastes from category X and Y chemicaltankers of whom cargo
areas should be washed.
- Wastes, excluding food wastes.
- Unpurified wastewater, if the ship operates within Finnish sea areas.

The regulation does not apply to:

- Bilgewater that is in bilgewater tank, if the ship has bilgewater separator
unit.
- Cargo wastes from category X and Y chemicaltankers of whom cargo
areas should not be washed.
- Unpurified wastewater in ships that operate outside Finnish sea areas.
- Foodwaste in ships that operate in outside Finnish sea areas.

3. Bilge water sources

Bilge water is created within all kinds of maritime vessels, boats and other vehicles that
have built-in engine that run with light- or heavy fuel oil. Smaller boats that run with normal
fuel also create bilge water that shouldn’t be let out into the sea and should be collected by
each port according to the legislation set by HELCOM.
 3.a Bilge water creation and characteristics

Figure 1. Example picture of how bilge water is formed within vessels.(NeRF)

Bilge water and sludge water is created within vessels in different operations as seen from
the figure above.
Shortly described bilge water is all of the captured water that hasn’t drained off over the
deck of the vessel. It should be noted tha bilge water can also include a lot of different
wastes that is leaked or generated within the ship, i.e such as detergents, oil, solvents,
chemicals, pitch and other different particles.(Potters 2013).
Sludge water is more dense material than normal oil, it forms in the bottom parts of the
bilge well and can also be used to recycle into a recycled fuel oil product.
 3.a.i Separation Units

Figure 2. Bilge water creation and output in vessel without a separation unit.
Bilge water is created in the bottom floor of the vessel as a mixture of water and oil. This is
then pumped out of the vessel with a bilge pump into a storage unit or directly into a truck.
In large vessels the bilge water is usually pumped right into a truck if the quantity is high
enough to fully fill a tank-truck. As further mentioned the storage units have to be
mandatory in ports of Finland or there has to be some way the vessels are able to pump
out the waste direclty into a safe contained location.
Figure 3. Illustration of bilge water creation and output in vessel with separation unit.
In the figure above can be seen where the different wastes are generated and how the
separation unit works. Bilge water treatment or separation unit cleanses the waste within
the ship, storing the waste itself in a storage unit inside the ship and therefore ableing the
clean water to be pumped over the deck off the ship into the sea. The oily waste from the
storage unit can be then delivered to a waste processing facility where the waste will be
further processed ultimately produce oil from the waste and separate all the remaining
excess particles.

3.b Yearly bilge- and sludge water reserves in Finnish ports

According to a survey by a Finnish consulting company in 2013, total collected bilge water
reserves within 11 ports in Finland was 9234 m3 in 2011 and 9380 m3 in 2012. Finnish
ports included in the survey are: Helsinki, Naantali, Hanko, Rauma, Pori, Raahe, Kokkola,
Kemi, Lappeenranta, Tornio and Inkoo(LogiWin).
The bilge water is collected and processed by different private companies such as
Ekokem, Phoenix Collector and L&T. These companies use pipelines and trucks to
transport the waste waters from ports to their further processing facilities where the last
separation processes are done.
Typically most of the bilge water is collected in larger ports or in ports that are specialised
in liquid chemical or oil cargo and it should be noted that in the survey mentioned further is
not included HaminaKotka and Turku ports which are some of the largest ports in Finland
and therefore in reality the 2011 and 2012 bilge water reserves are higher.

3.c Reserving possibilities in port areas

It’s not common for small or medium sized ports to have storage units built for vessel
based wastes. Normally only the larger ports that have high yearly traffic have invested
into a storage unit or has a company operating in the port area to store the wastes. These
storage units are generally quite small of size. According to the survey mentioned in 3.b
only ports of Lappeenranta and Tornio have small 19m3 and 10m3 capacity storage units
for oil wastes from vessels(LogiWin). The heavier waste, sludge water is not also collected
in every port actively as the created amount of sludge-water is less than bilge-water that
contains lighter particles.
Companies specialised in oily waste handling normally make contracts with ports using 2-4
year conracts for oily waste collection and further transporting them to their corresponding
waste processing facilities. Generally all of the bilge water are directly collected into trucks.
 4. Market situation of the end product in Finland

The price for recycled fuel oil is not published as it has almost the same heat value as
some of the heavy fuel oils in the market, although the nature of the production is very
different. The caloric value of recycled fuel oil 36,62MJ/kg and for heavy fuel oil that is
41MJ/kg. There is demand however for slightly lower heat value products such as recycled
fuel oil.
The current market price for heavy fuel oil in Europe is 279,5$/mt.(ShipAndBunker). The
sales price for recycled fuel oil would be some % lower than heavy fuel oil as the caloric
value is sligthly lower and the quality may not always be steady.

4.a Recycled fuel oil consumers

According to the further mentioned survey there are potential customers in Finland that are
able to use also recycled fuel oil in their processes. For example two of the companies
mentioned that they already use maximum of 10 000 tons of recycled fuel oil in their
processes and one using even 100 000 tons per year. These companies operate in steel-
or mineral refining industries and have high yearly production capacities. These
companies also have larger storage units for recycled fuel oil, one of which is 200m3 and
one that is 250m3. The recycled fuel oil is ordered when needed from the waste
processing companies and there is no continuous feed of the product as the consumer
company revises the inventory levels as they are.(LogiWin)
One of the companies answered that hey have 14 chalk ovens in Finland that can be
flexibly changed to use recycled fuel oil in the process. The company also does business
in many countries around the Baltic Sea and has total consumption of recycled fuel oil of
35 to 40 000 tons per year, and also has storaging capacities.(LogiWin)
It seems that many of the companies are able to change the settings of their production
processes to make them compatible with the use of recycled fuel oil. In steel industry the
recycled fuel oil can be used in the pre-heating procedure of large melting ovens where
the steady quality of the product isn’t very relevant.
 5. Processing bilge water and production of the end product

Figure 4. Illustration of bilge water intake and processing in waste handling facilities.

The figure 4. shows how the processing of bilge water into end products of recycled fuel oil
and water is done. The water is first pumped out of the ships in many locations and filtered
from larger particles or rubbish so that only liquid goes through as bilge water. Optionally it
is then stored within the port area or directly put into trucks directly. In the processing unit
the bilge- and sludge water is processed through many steps of filtering, heating, spinning,
micro-fileting and separation as seen in the picture and then stored as recycled fuel oil in a
storage unit located in the factory area. From the storage unit of the end product, the
product can be ordered by different customers mentioned earlier in section 4.a.

6. Logistics of bilge water in Finland

There are many possibilities to transfer liquid wastes like bilge water to the waste
processing facilities, such as railway, road, pipeline and ships. As the yearly collected
quantity of bilge water isn’t very high per port in Finland, the mostly used method of
transport is road transport, by using liquid cargo trucks or liquid containers mounted on a
semi-trailer. Each truck tank can generally load up to 20-40m3 of liquid wastes.
The truck delivering of liquid wastes can be maintained more easily as the ships have time
window of 24hours to inform ports about delivering bilge water and other wastes within the
ship. Information about release of wastes should be done immediately by the operating
ship when the final destination port is known. This regulation does not apply to smaller
yachts or boats that carry less than 13 passengers, nor to fishing boats.(TraFi)
In this way the delivery request made by the port for the waste processing company can
be made well before thus ensuring the effectiveness of the delivery company’s supply
chain and also reducing the stress of scheduling. Also for smaller boats and fishing
vessels the quantity of bilge water produced is significantly less and therefore can be
temporarily stored within the port area.

6.a Supply chain of bilge water

As mentioned earlier ships captain should book a bilge water collection with the port or
further processing company atleast 24 hours before arrival to the port. There are two
possibilities how to let bilge water out in the port:
1. Bilge water can be stored in storage units in the port area
2. Truck retrieval of bilge water from the port area.

Figure 5. Example of typical bilge water supply chain in Finland

In the figure above is explained the supply chain of deliveries and information from when
the bilge water release request comes from the ship and ultimately after processing the
delivery to different customers. It should be mentioned that there is a possibility that if truck
delivery is used and the truck isn’t full after first collection, it can collect upto it’s full
capacity from another port during the same working day. The estimated amount of bilge
water released is known by the ship’s captain upon informing further processing facility.

7. Future of bilge water industry

There are many European Union driven directives towards the use of renewable fuels.
According to the EU, every EU country has to prepare a operation plan for year 2020
where the renewable energy use of the total energy usage should be atleast 10%(Lex
Europa).
Therefore Finland as part of Eupean Union will also have to contribute to this directive, for
Finland the goal of renewable energy usage has however been set to 38,7% of total
energy usage(Lex Europa).
Vessels or ships that use renewable energy such as LNG or biodiesel do not produce bilge
water. This naturally causes the decrease in yearly bilge water collections per port and
therefore also makes it less. Overall the trend of moving towards renewable energy
sources will most likely continue even after year 2020 with more directives by the EU, this
will ultimately cause the extinction of bilge water collection and processing needs of ports
and companies in Finland. Although until there is even a small amount of bilge water
produced within vessels, the ports and vessels have to follow the regulation set by
HELCOM.

8. Conclusions

Bilge water collection is mandatory for the ports to handle and they have to provide the
possibility for ships to release all of their liquid wastes to be safely contained within the
port area or directly delivered into waste processing facilities. These regulations are set by
HELCOM so that all the ports and ships operating within the Baltic Sea area are
responsible. Naturally this encourages waste processing companies to open up a business
for recycled fuel oil which is the end product after processing the bilge water.
The end product does not always have steady quality and the caloric heat value of the
product is not as high as heavy fuel oil for example. The recycled fuel oil can however be
used in many processes for example within the steel- or mineral refining industries, and
also if the product quality isn’t steady. Transportation of liquid wastes from ports can be
easily handled as the operating ships have mandatory time window of 24 hours before
arriving to the final destination Finnish port to inform the port about release of bilge water,
so that the receiving date of the bilge water is known beforehand and truck delivery can be
ordered.
In the future bilge water production will decrease as the EU is moving towards favoring
renewable energy sources in maritime industry, such as LNG and biodiesel that do not
produce bilge water when used in ship engines.
9. References & Sources

1. http://www.trafi.fi
2. Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate – Ministry of Infrastructure and the
Environment – Netherlands Regulatory Framework(NeRF),
http://www.puc.overheid.nl
3. Marine Pollution – Dr. Geert Potters, 2013. Oxford University Press.
4. http://www.logiwin.com
5. http//www.shipandbunker.com
6. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FI/
7. http://www.rcrcommodities.com
8. http://www.ekokem.fi
9. http://www.lassila-tikanoja.fi
10. http://www.boliden.fi
11. http://www.nordkalk.fi