With the increasing cost of marine fuel oils, ship owners around the world are looking for methods that allow them to use fuel oil wisely and efficiently. In order to save both fuel and energy of a ship, it is very important to first know how much fuel is being consumed. A Fuel Management System allows you to do exactly this. The system helps in monitoring, measuring, and displaying the amount of fuel oil used by a ship.
A marine fuel management system helps in providing the accurate amount of fuel oil burnt at any particular vessel speed or engine rpm. This helps the ship’s crew to continuously measure and monitor the fuel, an extremely important aspect when the ship is sailing. A continuous measuring system will also help in measuring the fuel burn rate or the amount of fuel required by an engine at a particular rpm in an hour, in a watch, or in one full day. The fuel management system thus helps crew members to take decisions that would not affect the fuel burn rate of the engine and would also increase the efficiency.
The system also helps in keeping a continuously watch on all the fuel tanks levels right from the comfort of ship’s engine control room or bridge. This continuously monitoring also helps in evaluating how much total fuel each engine or generator can consume, and thus provides a clearer picture as to how the vessel uses the fuel oil.
Also, the amount of fuel used by a ship is not dependent on the rpm of the engine alone. Many crew members believe this and they therefore reduce the ship’s rpm to reduce fuel consumption. However, there are several other factors such as the condition of sea, direction of wind, varying load, fluctuation in speed, and condition of the engine and propulsion system which also play an equal role in the amount of fuel used by a ship. A marine fuel management system considers all these factors, along with the speed and rpm of the vessel, and provides the right recommendation after performing various calculations. This helps in saving a lot of fuel oil which would otherwise go wasted.