(l-r) Ian Bainbridge, Janet Street Porter, Adam Warren, Antony Warren, and Jayne Winter, RDPE Area Manager (North East) at the Emerald Biogas AD facility in Newton Aycliffe The north east’s first commercial food waste anaerobic digestion (AD) plant opened in County Durham with the writer and broadcaster as host. Working with the private and public sector Emerald Biogas is recycling and reusing the region’s food waste to generate electricity, heat and bio-fertilisers at its £8 million facility. Formed in 2009, Emerald Biogas is owned by three partners Antony and Adam Warren of John Warren ABP and Ian Bainbridge of Agricore. Funding for the project was made available through the Rural Development Programme for England, which is jointly funded by Defra and the European Union. The biogas produced is burned using Combined Heat and Power (CHP) technology to produce 1.56 MW per hour or enough energy to power 2,000 homes. Waste is collected from schools, food manufacturing companies, retailers and leisure outlets. The north east generates over 800,000 tonnes of food waste every year, with over 80,000 tonnes of generated by schools. To tackle the growing problem of food waste, Emerald Biogas has taken its Waste Warriors: Food for Thought campaign into at schools. “Food waste to landfill is a growing concern, with over 80 kilograms thrown away in a primary school each week,” said director Adam Warren. “Through our initiative, pupils have the opportunity to understand the problem of food waste and our innovative green energy solution. We collect the schools’ food waste to process, pupils then visit the plant to experience the food waste-processing journey in action.” www.emeraldbiogas.com

The Energy Institute (EI) has been working to improve the test methods for predicting winter performance of diesel fuels – especially those containing significant amounts of biodiesel. One particularly important winter performance parameter is the cold soak filter blocking tendency of the fuel. The existing EI test method is IP PM-EA/08, Determination of filter blocking tendency of fatty acid methyl esters – cold soak and filtration method’. The test method comprises of a sample pre-treatment step which involves warming the sample to 60°C (in order to remove its thermal history) before the cold soak. During the cold soak the sample is chilled to 5°C and held at this temperature for 16 hours. After the cold soak the filter blocking tendency is determined using IP 387 Procedure B. The cold soak filterability test was further developed after a joint workshop between the EI and European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Working Group 31. Recent work by WG31 has targeted sources of variability in the procedure and a draft CEN method has been developed. The EI has now incorporated all of the recent developments and enhancements into an updated proposed method – IP PM-EA/13. Significant enhancements to the method include changes to the sample preparation step and cold soak apparatus and the introduction of a verification standard. This winter IP PM-EA/13 is being used by the fuels supply industry and other interested parties to feedback performance and user experiences to ensure the method is robust and fit for purpose. This will enable WG31 to further optimise the draft CEN test method. A precision study could then take place in 2014. www.energyinstitute.org    

To help raise awareness of the 20% of UK households living in fuel poverty and the need to make the country’s homes more energy efficient, OFTEC backed this month’s Cold Homes Week. Launched by the Energy Bill Revolution (EBR), Cold Homes Week brought together more than 170 businesses, charities and organisations in support of ending fuel poverty. Along with other EBR supporters, OFTEC staff and technicians took part in The Big Tweet sending out tweets using the hashtag #ColdHomesWeek. Local MPs were also urged to back the campaign to help bring down excess winter deaths, many attributed to rising fuel costs, which topped 31,000 in England and Wales last year. OFTEC attended a parliamentary reception where knitted scarves, the symbol of the campaign, were presented to MPs to highlight the fuel poverty issue. EBR is urging the government to use the money it gets from carbon taxes to help make UK homes super-energy efficient, installing measures such as better insulation and modern boilers to drive down energy bills, keep homes warm and cut carbon emissions. Director general, Jeremy Hawksley said: “With projections showing that the number of UK homes in fuel poverty is set to rise to one in three households by 2016, this is an issue which urgently needs addressing. “Our Oilsave website contains lots of useful tips on becoming more energy efficient and OFTEC registered technicians can always provide well professional advice to homeowners. We also teamed up with Age UK to produce a booklet for older people, who are most at risk, to help them keep warm and well during the winter.” Download the Age UK leaflet at www.oftec.org/consumers/keeping-warm-saving-money. With many thousands of standard efficiency boilers in need of upgrade, OFTEC has written to the government calling for the introduction of a simple oil boiler scrappage scheme, similar to the one running successfully in Northern Ireland where over 7,770 subsidised oil boilers have already been installed. Jeremy Hawksley concluded: “The government should be making it as easy and affordable as possible for homeowners to install modern condensing boilers which can save the average household up to 20% on fuel bills as well as cutting their carbon emissions. A simple move like this could go a long way towards bringing down fuel bills and reducing the number of people in the UK living in fuel poverty.” www.oilsave.org.uk      

The HID policy team at the Health and Safety Executive has announced that the Heavy Fuel Oil (Amendment) Regulations 2014 have been made and laid. The regulations, which can be viewed at www.legislation.gov.uk/id/uksi/2014/162 came into force on Thursday 20th February 2014. These regulations amend the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 (COMAH), which apply across Great Britain. They also amend relevant planning law in England, in relation to which they also include transitional arrangements. The Scottish and Welsh governments are addressing planning considerations within their own planning regimes. The COMAH Competent Authority has published guidance on heavy fuel oil – www.hse.gov.uk/comah/guidance/hfo-guidance.htm  

With ‘exciting plans to grow capacity and the potential to create more jobs’, Pace Fuelcare’s Kings Lynn depot is officially opened When Pace Fuelcare opened a brand new facility In Kings Lynn, more than 40 staff and guests, including the town’s major and the MP for North West Norfolk, were present to declare it open for business. Over £1.5 million was invested in the depot’s upgrade and modernisation, enabling it to play a key role as an operational hub to better serve Pace Fuelcare’s commercial, agricultural and domestic customers across East Anglia. General manager Simon Willis said: “We were delighted to welcome our local MP, Henry Bellingham, to our grand unveiling. The new site has state of the art storage facilities which are at the forefront of health & safety standards; this has increased the amount of product we can store and our capability to deliver to our customers as promptly as possible. We remain committed to our local area, both as a fuel supplier and a loyal supporter of community groups.” Henry Bellingham, MP for North West Norfolk, said “Pace Fuelcare is a highly respected company and has an excellent record, particularly delivering for rural communities. The depot already employs 22 members of staff, and has exciting plans to grow capacity with the potential to create more jobs.”www.pacefuelcare.co.uk

Jeremy Hawksley speaking about Oilsave and the fight for oil heating at the Fuel Oil News Distributor Debate earlier this month. See the March issue of Fuel Oil News for more details. The price difference between oil and gas has narrowed significantly. Three years ago oil was nearly 60% more expensive than mains gas but now it is just over 12% more expensive, based on using a condensing boiler. According to the latest quarterly data from the Sutherland Tables, the current annual cost of using oil to heat a three bedroom home is now 5% lower than the average cost reported over the last three years, whereas the same average figures for homes using gas and electricity show an increase in heating costs of 14% and 16.5% respectively.the price of oil has decreased by 2.18%. Directly comparing the price of heating a three bedroom home in January 2011 to January 2014 provides an even starker result and shows that electricity has seen the greatest price increase over the last three years at 38.89%. Similarly, gas prices have increased by 37.3% and solid fuels by 26.1% respectively, whereas in comparison, the price of oil has decreased by 2.18%. The substantial increase in electricity prices (38.89%) is especially notable as it means that renewable technologies such as air source (ASHP) and ground source (GSHP) heat pumps which run on electricity are becoming a much more expensive option to heat a typical home in Britain. LPG, used by some 170,000 off-grid households, remains the most expensive fuel, costing a three bedroom home with a condensing boiler £1,923 per annum compared to oil at £1,275 and gas at £1,136. “This is very welcome news,” said Jeremy Hawksley, director general of OFTEC. “This data confirms that the estimated one million households that use oil to heat their homes have benefited from relatively consistent heating costs over the past three years and are currently experiencing a small decrease in prices. “With the global oil markets stabilising and the supply of oil improving, we expect prices between heating oil and gas to continue to narrow – however, only time will tell on this. “Oil users also have the advantage of choosing when to buy their oil, such as during summer months when prices are often lower, as well as purchasing through oil buying syndicates to secure more competitive prices. The figures also show that a modern condensing boiler can reduce annual running costs by an average of £284.”

The 13th Tank Storage Association (TSA) conference and exhibition took place at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena in September. A well attended event, registration topped 400 and exhibitor numbers doubled to over 60. Focusing on HSE compliance and process safety management, the morning conference was chaired by Peter MacKay, managing editor and publisher of Hazardous Cargo Bulletin. The concensus among the first five speakers was that whilst the industry has come a long way, there is further to go.

“From an economic perspective, Immingham is a very important hub in the UK’s infrastructure,” says Keith L Jackson, director of Immingham Storage Company, part of Simon Storage. In addition to being home to Simon’s Immingham East and West terminals, the Humber Estuary has two refineries which together supply over 20% of the UK’s refined product – Total’s Lindsey and Phillips 66 Humber, the latter specialising in petroleum coke for export. The Associated British Ports’ (ABP) Immingham Dock & Grimsby Ports receive between 55-60m tonnes of cargo a year, of which approximately 22m tonnes are oil products. Immingham Storage handles large quantities of oil products, including many niche and specialised refined products. Fuels represent around 40% of the Simon business; a licence to store crude oil was surrendered in 2007 but recent enquiries may change this position. The two Immingham terminals operate via two deep water jetties with 6 berths owned by ABP; each can accommodate ships up to 50,000 DWT. Approximately 50 ships a month call at the West terminal to deliver or collect products, with 25 ships a month using the East terminal. Together, Immingham East and West comprise the UK’s largest terminal of its type, handling up to 1.5m tonnes of product a year with over 600,000m3 of storage. Growth in the East terminal, managed by Andrew Rhodes, has largely been both by organic development and by acquisition; an ex liquid sulphur terminal, the most recent purchase, was acquired three years ago. The terminal, with up to 14” import/export lines and easy-to-convert tanks, offers significant flexibility as recently witnessed by the conversion of some capacity to gasoline standard post Buncefield with Safety Instrumented Systems. The facility can offer food grade product storage, as well as pressurised chemical gases. Installed 18 months ago, the East has a holding tank for effluent which then feeds into a bioreactor tank for treatment before being discharged into the Humber under an environmental permit. The West terminal, which has a similar system in place, can additionally recover up to 250 tonnes of water per day for reuse in other applications. Fuel Oil News editor, Jane Hughes was invited to take a tour of Immingham Storage to see the operations first hand. Managing a capital intensive business Established in 1929, creosote was the first product stored by Immingham Storage at the West terminal before being exported to the USA. Like much of the UK’s terminal infrastructure, both terminals were largely developed in the mid-1950s. Texaco and Esso (sea fed from Fawley) had terminals in the area – both acquired by Simon as part of the development of what was to become the East terminal. It takes a 100-strong team, working 5 shifts daily round the clock 365 days a year to receive and deliver products, and to take care of routine maintenance, breakdown, out of service inspections and project work such as changing product in a tank or updating systems/infrastructure. Some projects, like a current one to replace electrical infrastructure, will end up costing over one million pounds and take up to four years to complete. Seeking to maintain a good level of control, project management work is handled internally, with Simon developing its own conceptual and then detailed design, tendering, selection of contactors and management of project delivery through to project commissioning and handover to the terminal. Over £2m is spent on capital maintenance projects annually, primarily to tackle ageing plant issues. In addition to the ‘routine’ tank inspections – there are 137 tanks in the West and 104 in the East. Keith told Fuel Oil News: “The big push is now on the site’s key arteries, its pipework.” Visual detailed checks, radiography and NDT techniques are among the methods used to identify corrosion, poor quality welding and other defect issues. At the West 95% of tanks are the original build although many have had major refurbishment work performed, including new floors and bases installed, as a result of the ongoing inspection and refurbishment programme. The cost to rebuild three tanks recently was £5m. Some ten tanks have been totally replaced on the West terminal alone as a result of this inspection programme. “This is the proverbial Forth Bridge – we’re constantly seeking to identify potential problems and then fixing them – making it a very capital intensive business,” explained Keith. “We audit ourselves and our contractors – we step in early to correct so that any identified poor practice, be it safety related or quality of delivery, is not allowed to escalate. This is a human intensive process and virtually a permanent construction site with up to 100 contactors on site at any one time. “For example, we’re currently studying the site fire system – which was built some 25 years ago. Life’s moved on so we’re assessing ours against current best practice and expect to spend a not insignificant sum on making the system fit for the next 25 years of its life.” With energy costs to run the sites a big consideration, a biomass boiler, rather than an oil one, is being considered for steam production. It is hoped that a mix of energy sources will give some protection against future energy price fluctuations. Coping with the legacy of Buncefield “The industry’s head went down in a big way post Buncefield,” said Keith. “Working with regulators, the industry took a long, hard look at how it conducted itself in order to learn from the incident. Simon, in common with the rest of the sector, has spent much time and money in improving technical competence as well as its infrastructure; we now have a much better structure in place to effectively control Major Accident Hazards as well as better and more demonstrable safety leadership. “Born out of Buncefield, the implementation of the containment policy has made a huge change around the site. New bund walls have had to be constructed extending up to three metres below ground. Boreholes enable regular samples to be taken to monitor groundwater quality and movement. We’ve spent over £2m on work so far at Immingham that is necessary to give us a licence to stay in business. Working in a changing storage world “The storage industry has seen a lot of change over the last few years; as oil and chemical majors have retreated, we’re working more with oil and chemical traders and wholesalers. The latter are part of a logistics chain rather than original manufacturers, meaning that customer technical expertise has dwindled and the level of contact and information quality has declined.” Simon does draw on in-house expertise – its safety team is headed by a chemistry PhD, and there are specialists in environment, mechanical, electrical/control engineering and human behaviour – and, being part of a larger group, there is usually someone with the right knowledge to help handle any new specialised product. The retail market has become increasingly difficult with an overall decline in consumption, and dieselisation of the car fleet. The UK is now a net importer of diesel and adding ethanol to gasoline, which is in oversupply, for RTFO purposes has exacerbated its market problems further. International product imbalances have removed traditional dumping grounds for gasoline from Europe. “It’s a buy one, get one free market, where gasoline is taken in return for a deal on diesel from UK refiners,” said Keith. “We are pleased that from a standing start, our customer, Prax Petroleum, has been successful in growing its commercial business here at Immingham against this background of a difficult market. “We’ve been reasonably successful in attracting new chemical business,” said Keith. “It’s a market dear to our hearts and one in which we have much technical expertise. REACH has had the effect of driving out hazardous chemicals from the market, particularly toxics. Regulatory pressure in Europe means it’s increasingly difficult to operate here; much manufacturing has gone to the Far East where there’s little equivalent environmental legislation. New world scale plants offer economies of scale and levels of manufacturing integration and sophistication that are simply not achievable in European plants that were often constructed in the post war period. Coupled with structural changes, manufacturing businesses closing, and supply contracts ending, it’s a sad reflection of a chemical manufacturing sector in decline. “In February 2014 COMAH, after amendment under SEVESO III, will classify fuel oil as Dangerous for the Environment. For a market that’s not great right now and has not been historically strong, this additional legislation will be another challenge. Traditionally a lower end product in the market, this new classification has the potential to introduce significant new costs to the storage of this fuel which is already seeing reduced volumes. “Marine fuel also has issues. As ship operators look to move away from heavy fuel oil as a result of SECA (Sulphur Emissions Control Areas), we face the biggest change since shipping moved from coal to oil. Government sponsored Navy oiling stations around the world provided physical impetus for the change from coal to oil burning ships of the line and the merchant fleet at the turn of the 19th century; now we face a new transition. LNG is mooted as the new marine fuel of choice but its storage, shipping and distribution are extremely difficult and hence expensive; there are no current standards for bunkering and little infrastructure on the ground and no national need to drive through change. LNG storage has been built in Rotterdam (GATE) and in the UK at the Isle of Grain, amongst other UK/European locations. However, these were not designed with ship bunkering specifically in mind or indeed any break bulk activity for onward distribution, although clearly these are under consideration now. Construction of smaller scale distribution and bunkering sites at other main UK ports is a possibility but we are a small island where typically no one wants LNG storage in their back yard. However Simon will look at opportunities in this field and, if there’s half a chance of making it work, we’ll explore the relevant avenues to develop concepts on a commercial basis.”

With most biodiesel currently traded through the Rotterdam barge market, one UK company has revealed ambitious plans to convince the UK that home grown biodiesel from waste is the way forward  Having set out to develop a ‘robust and flexible business model around low grade waste vegetable oils’, RGM Fuels (see page 6 Fuel Oil News July) is now in contract talks with several household names and fuel distributors. “We’re at the stage of finalising volumes and prices with companies,” entrepreneur and investor Gordon McLure, told Fuel Oil News editor, Jane Hughes on a recent visit. By combining waste with clever chemistry, Gordon, together with colleagues Dr Richard Jackson (PhD chemistry) and Dr Matthew Davies (PhD engineering), convinced investors of what RGM Fuels could bring to the market; a deal was signed with a private equity investor in 2011. “Using a system specifically designed to process waste vegetable oils, we set out to produce biodiesel from waste to a very high standard,” added Gordon. “Developed by Richard and Matthew, our unique technology enables even very low grade vegetable oils to be processed; arguably this produces the most sustainable biodiesel available.” High standards – convincing the market Historically focusing on virgin seed oils, such as soy and palm oil, much investment was made in the original biofuel market, then the food v fuel debate arose and the sustainable fuel image was tarnished. An emotive topic, the food v fuel debate together with quality issues over biodiesel made from waste cooking oil in what was then a cottage industry, left a poor perception of biofuel and the industry acquired a cowboy image. Low grade feedstock led to badly made biodiesel, quality issues and fuel degradation whilst a DIY biofuels market grew up with carte blanche to make a little bit of diesel without paying any tax. Branded as unsustainable, biodiesel quality was questioned with a multitude of reasons proffered as to why it should not be used. Distancing itself from this tarnished image has proved to be a challenge; but as companies increasingly look to support their corporate social responsibility policy, RGM Fuels reports that interest in biodiesel is growing again. “The transition from seed to waste feedstock saw huge variations in the quality of biodiesel so there was a lot of resistance to what was seen as an unreliable product,” explained Gordon. “If made properly biodiesel from waste is totally reliable; in fact it can have standards more exact than those for mineral diesel. Once barriers have been overcome, hoops jumped and trials undertaken, we’ve been able to convince people of the product’s worth.” Practising what it preaches, the team fuels its own vehicles with 100% biodiesel. “Presently, the B100 market is limited in the UK as the market is ignorant of its capabilities,” Matthew explained. Down on the farm A tree lined drive leads down to Quarry Hill Farm, the site of RGM Fuels first biodiesel plant, commissioned at the end of last year. Situated in the village of Lathbury in rural Buckinghamshire, the plant, which can produce up to 100 tonnes a day, was built as a pilot plant to prove the technology and the model. “Setting up a biodiesel plant is not for the faint hearted. It’s easy to make biodiesel, but it’s very difficult to make biodiesel well,” said Matthew whose enthusiasm for the plant, which he likens to a giant Meccano set, is infectious. With their specialist knowledge in chemical reactors, Matthew and Richard dismissed the expensive cracking and cooking method for esterification, favouring instead a reactor system that enables the use of a broader feedstock range which can be continually, rather than batch, processed. The system is also currently in use at plants in South Africa and in Memphis, Tennessee. “We’ve kept the process lean and mean – new state of the art equipment sits with secondhand tanks and by speeding the process up, batch quality is more easily controlled.” Nothing is wasted with the glycerine produced in the process also sold. “This plant was primarily set up for demonstration purposes, hence the secondhand tanks,” explained Gordon. “A new dockside plant is planned to allow us to scale up to a much larger production enabling product movements in and out by ship.” In the meantime, there are interim plans to expand the farm plant and/or buy an existing plant and convert it to run on RGM specific reactors.

“It’s amazing how things can improve when you really put your mind to it,” Mark Nicholls, general operations manager at NWF Fuels, told Fuel Oil News editor, Jane Hughes on a recent visit to the Group’s head office near Nantwich in Cheshire.