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Alberta govt to construct another WCS processing refinery

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On ‎12‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 11:13 PM, Jan van Eck said:

Sure you can. 

What you fellows are all overlooking is that refined oils have other uses, displacing other sources.  

Specifically, Canada has always had a thriving plastics industry.  While there is one manufacture of plastics resins inside Canada, a large volume is imported, there to be converted by processors into finished products:  auto parts by injection molding, blow molding of bottles, resins casting, even rotational molding of large objects such as marine paddle-boards.  You can displace these imports of resins by using domestic oils for base feedstocks.

There are others.  Quite a bit of heating, especially in Quebec, is done electrically, because of a devalued price.  There is nothing to stop displacing electric baseboard heating with oil heat, and the electricity sold in the US export market.  It requires re-jiggering of price signals, but it is not as if that cannot be accomplished. 

Further, yet another large market for Canadian crude, converted into diesel, is marine.  There is quite a bit of shipping into the Canadian ports of Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax  (plus a lot of secondary ports that handle bulk cargoes).  As the Canadian currency is devalued relative to the dollar, there is and will be effective 2020 a large market for marine diesel.  Right now Trans-Atlantic ships into Canada will fuel up in the bunker port of Rotterdam, but that trade is about to undergo a tectonic shift as bunker becomes an obsolete fuel. 

Another prime market for Canadian refined is aircraft jetfuel.  The jetfuel business  (and its piston equivalent, 100LL) is arcane, while there are a very few refineries that specialize in jetfuel and 100LL, it remains an outlier, and there is nothing to stop grabbing market share, and all of the Canadian share, of jetfuel, an expanding product.  

A further market is the production of naptha.  This is an interesting feedstock for a variety of other products, and again, remember that as long as the Canadian Dollar is floating at a discount of 1/3 off the US Dollar, the Canadian products have a built-in costing edge, and the savvy seller can snap off nice chunks of market share.  Plus, a cheap feedstock will allow for the development of downstream industries to absorb production of naptha. 

You can fit 4.5 million barrels into a 1.5 million barrel bucket - if you make the bucket larger.  It takes a broader mindset.  Production is not a zero-sum game.  Cheers. 

Seriously what incentive is there for Quebecans to do this? You have a home heated by electricity (preferably by high efficiency heat pumps) and from what I gather locally produced hydro (James Bay?). To replace this with oil you have to put in an oil boiler and a large tank costing several thousand and then tolerate the stinky emissions and particulates  from the kerosene or diesel being burnt (if it hasn't been stolen by fuel thieves) .

I assume the oil will have to be priced to make it economic for use as a heating fuel compared to the Hydro.

Is the end result Quebecans having to pay a lot more for heating to subsidise Alberta Oil while their locally produced electricity gets sent off to the USA to undercut prices there.

Prima Facie sounds like Turkeys voting for Christmas.

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2 minutes ago, NickW said:

Seriously what incentive is there for Quebecans to do this? You have a home heated by electricity (preferably by high efficiency heat pumps) and from what I gather locally produced hydro (James Bay?). To replace this with oil you have to put in an oil boiler and a large tank costing several thousand and then tolerate the stinky emissions and particulates  from the kerosene or diesel being burnt (if it hasn't been stolen by fuel thieves) .

I assume the oil will have to be priced to make it economic for use as a heating fuel compared to the Hydro.

Is the end result Quebecans having to pay a lot more for heating to subsidise Alberta Oil while their locally produced electricity gets sent off to the USA to undercut prices there.

Prima Facie sounds like Turkeys voting for Christmas.

A nice dose of reality here. Thanks, Nick. 

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(edited)

13 hours ago, mthebold said:

I'm a product of failing public schools who stumbles along as best he can with half-baked ideas, incomplete understandings, and an ill-formed culture.  I often wander into intellectual cul de sacs, burn bridges, and miss opportunities simply because I don't know better.  I'm rightfully proud of how far I've come, but still recognize that I'd benefit from the right exposure. 

And then, once I've internalized it, I can pass it along. 

I guess that makes me 5th tier as well, then.  We are teaching our son to upgrade to the next tier:  Wish us luck!

Edited by Dan Warnick
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30 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

I guess that make me 5th tier as well, then.  We are teaching our son to upgrade to the next tier:  Wish us luck!

Since I cannot claim a tier, I suppose that I did not make the cut!

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Just now, mthebold said:

To be fair, geothermal heating is still incredibly expensive.  If the price of oil were low, it could make sense to use it instead of electricity. 

True. But if the price is too low, you cannot afford to operate oil sands production. Price is still the most important factor in the decision equation.

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20 minutes ago, William Edwards said:

Since I cannot claim a tier, I suppose that I did not make the cut!

Not so, grasshopper.  Some are a tier unto their own.

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1 minute ago, Dan Warnick said:

Not so, grasshopper.  Some are a tier unto their own.

You are too kind!

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22 minutes ago, mthebold said:

To be fair, geothermal heating is still incredibly expensive.  If the price of oil were low, it could make sense to use it instead of electricity. 

Although they get a lot of criticism air source heat pumps will provide heat at a better efficiency than resistive heating down to about -20 deg C.

I suspect that Hydro - especially if its run of river is very cheap off peak. Do they use storage heaters in Quebec?

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3 hours ago, NickW said:

Seriously what incentive is there for Quebecans to do this? You have a home heated by electricity (preferably by high efficiency heat pumps) and from what I gather locally produced hydro (James Bay?). To replace this with oil you have to put in an oil boiler and a large tank costing several thousand and then tolerate the stinky emissions and particulates  from the kerosene or diesel being burnt (if it hasn't been stolen by fuel thieves) .

I assume the oil will have to be priced to make it economic for use as a heating fuel compared to the Hydro.

Is the end result Quebecans having to pay a lot more for heating to subsidise Alberta Oil while their locally produced electricity gets sent off to the USA to undercut prices there.

Quebeckers (those with electric heat) use baseboard resistance heating.  In effect, they are "energy hogs."  Resistance heating became popular after the installation of the generators on the Beauharnois Canal  (where the entire St. Lawrence River runs through generators, at an area where the River has these series of Falls;  the shipping goes through a lock canal), and to absorb that output resistance heating was popularized.  As prices rose domestically, it is now no longer particularly cheap.  The cost factor is the capital costs of (starting over) on an older home in installing a new oil platform. 

There is some incentive to going to oil (or natural gas, now also popular as gas is widely distributed in the populated areas of Quebec);  that is heat security.  There was this dramatic episode of a huge ice storm, that brought down eighteen miles of high-voltage lines and towers in rugged terrain, it took weeks for the power to be restored, and thousands of homes ended up wrecked from frozen pipes  (additional to being unlivable in the meantime).  Quite obviously, a heating system where the electric demand is only the burner motor and the circulator pump, which could be supplied by an inverter running off a car battery setup, or with an inverter and a cable out to your running car in the driveway, would save your house.  Since the oil heater does not have to run continuously, but will keep your home from freezing if you do it in spurts, you can see the logic.  Such inverters are available on Amazon or E-Bay for between $350 to $650.  And there is nothing to stop any agency from buying thousands and making them available at cost. 

Is it likely that resistance heaters would be removed and oil installed?  That depends on price signals.  Is the concept absurd?  No. 

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23 minutes ago, mthebold said:

It gets a lot colder than -20 C in Canada.  Also consider that, while air source heat pumps are technically more efficient down to -20 C, it's not by much. 

Air source heat pumps are great in the South where it rarely gets below 0 C.  Down here, we install a combination AC/heat pump to meet all our needs, and it stays efficient year round.  Once you get into the US Midwest, heat pumps are replaced by natural gas/propane furnaces.  The issue in this discussion is, "What would happen if oil were sufficiently cheap?"  The market has already answered that question: if oil were as cheap as propane per BTU, we'd install fuel oil furnaces in the same locations we install propane.  Same for natural gas. 

The only way for Oil Sands oil to get 'cheap' is for it to be subsidised.

Whats the break even cost of producing that oil with the additional cost of a >1000km pipeline to run / or transporting it by rail failing that?

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55 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Quebeckers (those with electric heat) use baseboard resistance heating.  In effect, they are "energy hogs."  Resistance heating became popular after the installation of the generators on the Beauharnois Canal  (where the entire St. Lawrence River runs through generators, at an area where the River has these series of Falls;  the shipping goes through a lock canal), and to absorb that output resistance heating was popularized.  As prices rose domestically, it is now no longer particularly cheap.  The cost factor is the capital costs of (starting over) on an older home in installing a new oil platform. 

There is some incentive to going to oil (or natural gas, now also popular as gas is widely distributed in the populated areas of Quebec);  that is heat security.  There was this dramatic episode of a huge ice storm, that brought down eighteen miles of high-voltage lines and towers in rugged terrain, it took weeks for the power to be restored, and thousands of homes ended up wrecked from frozen pipes  (additional to being unlivable in the meantime).  Quite obviously, a heating system where the electric demand is only the burner motor and the circulator pump, which could be supplied by an inverter running off a car battery setup, or with an inverter and a cable out to your running car in the driveway, would save your house.  Since the oil heater does not have to run continuously, but will keep your home from freezing if you do it in spurts, you can see the logic.  Such inverters are available on Amazon or E-Bay for between $350 to $650.  And there is nothing to stop any agency from buying thousands and making them available at cost. 

Is it likely that resistance heaters would be removed and oil installed?  That depends on price signals.  Is the concept absurd?  No. 

In that climate I get the heat security point. If I lived there what ever form of main heating I had I would invest in something stand alone along with good  insulation - a decent wood stove, propane fired cooking stove / inset fire.

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12 minutes ago, NickW said:

The only way for Oil Sands oil to get 'cheap' is for it to be subsidised.

Whats the break even cost of producing that oil with the additional cost of a >1000km pipeline to run / or transporting it by rail failing that?

Don't forget the cost of transforming pitch into a burnable fuel for the home.

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8 minutes ago, William Edwards said:

Don't forget the cost of transforming pitch into a burnable fuel for the home.

That as well!

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9 minutes ago, William Edwards said:

Don't forget the cost of transforming pitch into a burnable fuel for the home.

William - whats the bottom line cost for the pitch processors to break even?

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(edited)

1 hour ago, NickW said:

William - whats the bottom line cost for the pitch processors to break even?

For the Northwest Upgrader I think it is more than $50 per barrel for processing only. Production cost adds another $20/B. Transportation may be another $10-15/B. Pretty expensive!

All US $. For Canadian, add 30%.

Edited by William Edwards
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1 hour ago, William Edwards said:

For the Northwest Upgrader I think it is more than $50 per barrel for processing only. Production cost adds another $20/B. Transportation may be another $10-15/B. Pretty expensive!

All US $. For Canadian, add 30%.

The reality is that it only works if the Canadian Market becomes a totally closed market, and if you want oil products in Canada, you have to buy it from a retailer who buys it from a distributor who buys it from a refiner in Canada, who is obliged to purchase his base product from Alberta or Saskatchewan or Newfoundland.  Otherwise, it never, ever works out.  BUT  - big but - if indeed by Federal Decree the trading doors on oil are closed, then - big then - the deal works.  In effect, it forces other Canadians to buy oil from the producer provinces only at prices well in excess of world prices. 

And it might actually work, if no government entity levies a further tax on the product.  Remove all the taxes, and you can indulge is paying for oilsands product.  Think about it. 

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20 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

The reality is that it only works if the Canadian Market becomes a totally closed market, and if you want oil products in Canada, you have to buy it from a retailer who buys it from a distributor who buys it from a refiner in Canada, who is obliged to purchase his base product from Alberta or Saskatchewan or Newfoundland.  Otherwise, it never, ever works out.  BUT  - big but - if indeed by Federal Decree the trading doors on oil are closed, then - big then - the deal works.  In effect, it forces other Canadians to buy oil from the producer provinces only at prices well in excess of world prices. 

And it might actually work, if no government entity levies a further tax on the product.  Remove all the taxes, and you can indulge is paying for oilsands product.  Think about it. 

It is not unheard of, Jan. This was the way the business operated in the US the first half of my lifetime. We must recognize, however, that this was before the OPEC-inspired price jump in the seventies. Gasoline was 15-20¢/gal. back then and the price inside the fence was only 10¢/gal more than outside. It might be more difficult if you told your Canadian friends that their gasoline and heating oil was suddenly going to cost them an additional 40¢/liter, plus the additional carbon tax.

Edited by William Edwards
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(edited)

I want to thank @Jan van Eck, @William Edwards, @Dan Warnick and others for responding at length to my question. I'm grateful of your insights. The future does look bleak for Canadian petroleum producers.

According to William's view, the higher sulphur content will cause some of production from Canada to get shut-in (or see a big price discount) by 2020. The same effect will be seen by producers from the Middle East. We all know that when price goes low enough, some production shut-in will naturally take place. We also know that the world's demand for petroleum products are likely to be growing for several more years at least.

Does this mean we are going to see a higher or lower oil price? Does this mean that main stream media will need to quote two types of oil prices when reporting - a higher price for oil of low sulphur content and a lower price for oil of high sulphur content? Lastly, how many countries will just ignore this new low sulphur fuel requirement because they simply could not afford the alternatives?

Edited by Andrew Sun

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4 minutes ago, Andrew Sun said:

I want to thank @Jan van Eck, @William Edwards, @Dan Warnick and others for responding at length to my question. I'm grateful of your insights. The future does sound bleak for Canadian petroleum producers.

According to William's view, the higher sulphur content will cause some of production from Canada to get shut-in (or see a big price discount) by 2020. The same effect will be seen by producers from the Middle East. We all know that when price goes low enough, some production shut-in will naturally take place. We also know that the world's demand for petroleum products are still growing in the next few years.

Does this mean we are going to see a higher or lower oil price? Does this mean that main stream media will need to quote two types of oil prices - a higher price for oil of low sulphur content and a lower price for oil of high sulphur content? Lastly, how many countries will just ignore this  new low sulphur fuel requirement because they simply could not afford the alternatives?

Let me address the price of the different crude streams. Very few crudes are all light low sulfur or all heavy high sulfur. Most crudes have some of each. There are low sulfur light and low sulfur heavy. There are high sulfur light and high sulfur heavy. But generally a crude buyer is buying a mixture. Accordingly, the price will be a mixture of elements.

Arab Light, probably the world's most abundant grade, is roughly equivalent to a mixture of light West Texas crude and Canadian bitumen. So you can approximate the price of Arab Light by calculating 50% West Texas and 50% Canadian bitumen prices. Buyers do this in a more sophisticated way by giving more specific values to the various components of the various crudes.

Now turning to the expected world price of crude after 2020. I expect it to be down. My reasoning is that the desperate sellers of heavy high sulfur components will discount unreasonably. Thus the heavy high sulfur component of crudes will be given a greatly reduced value. Since most crudes have some of that component, most crudes will automatically be devalued. The few crudes that have no heavy high sulfur component will be not be devalued automatically, but refiners who have the ability to handle the higher sulfur components will bid less for the normally more expensive grades because to them there is not much difference in value. So the pricing pressure on all crudes will be down.

I hope that this is more helpful than confusing.

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2 hours ago, Andrew Sun said:

I want to thank @Jan van Eck, @William Edwards, @Dan Warnick and others for responding at length to my question. I'm grateful of your insights. The future does look bleak for Canadian petroleum producers.

 

Does this mean we are going to see a higher or lower oil price? Does this mean that main stream media will need to quote two types of oil prices when reporting - a higher price for oil of low sulphur content and a lower price for oil of high sulphur content? Lastly, how many countries will just ignore this new low sulphur fuel requirement because they simply could not afford the alternatives?

I would disagree in part with the analysis of William Edwards.  It is my view, and I have nothing to substantiate it except my dour and cynical view of international regulatory agencies, that IMO 2020 will end up with the oil equivalent of "waivers."  The marine industry is simply not ready for a wholesale switchover to low-sulfur, or ultra-low sulfur, fuels.  There are no scrubbers being put on existing boats.  Everyone is taking the attitude that fuel problems need to be sorted  out outside the ship, that the delivery of the fuel has to meet specifications before it is loaded on board.  Meanwhile the refiners are not up to speed to provide the necessary quantities, unless you divert from truck diesel, generator diesel, jetfuel, and agricultural diesel.  And that is not going to happen.

So the real issue is:  will outlier fuelling ports, say  in Africa, simply cheat?  Will China cheat?  Will Singapore cheat?  They just might. 

The industry is more likely to switch to  burning methanol than they are to attempting to install scrubbers.  How fast can tat changeover be done?  Not that fast; there are too many boats out there.  But it is logical that methanol is going to be the drop-in fuel. 

If expanded methanol comes to pass, and the marine industry contracts due to trade barriers, then oil grades will drop in price.  If jetfuel continues to climb in demand, then upgraders will have to be built rapidly, in necessary cobbled together from stuff scavenged from closed refineries, and then price will increase, perhaps dramatically.  So the picture remains both fluid and murky. 

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15 hours ago, NickW said:

Seriously what incentive is there for Quebecans to do this? You have a home heated by electricity (preferably by high efficiency heat pumps) and from what I gather locally produced hydro (James Bay?). To replace this with oil you have to put in an oil boiler and a large tank costing several thousand and then tolerate the stinky emissions and particulates  from the kerosene or diesel being burnt (if it hasn't been stolen by fuel thieves) .

I assume the oil will have to be priced to make it economic for use as a heating fuel compared to the Hydro.

Is the end result Quebecans having to pay a lot more for heating to subsidise Alberta Oil while their locally produced electricity gets sent off to the USA to undercut prices there.

Prima Facie sounds like Turkeys voting for Christmas.

I am not up to date on modern heat pumps, I know that they work well in moderate climates but are they up to heating in Quebec?

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(edited)

3 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I would disagree in part with the analysis of William Edwards.  It is my view, and I have nothing to substantiate it except my dour and cynical view of international regulatory agencies, that IMO 2020 will end up with the oil equivalent of "waivers."  The marine industry is simply not ready for a wholesale switchover to low-sulfur, or ultra-low sulfur, fuels.  There are no scrubbers being put on existing boats.  Everyone is taking the attitude that fuel problems need to be sorted  out outside the ship, that the delivery of the fuel has to meet specifications before it is loaded on board.  Meanwhile the refiners are not up to speed to provide the necessary quantities, unless you divert from truck diesel, generator diesel, jetfuel, and agricultural diesel.  And that is not going to happen.

So the real issue is:  will outlier fuelling ports, say  in Africa, simply cheat?  Will China cheat?  Will Singapore cheat?  They just might. 

The industry is more likely to switch to  burning methanol than they are to attempting to install scrubbers.  How fast can tat changeover be done?  Not that fast; there are too many boats out there.  But it is logical that methanol is going to be the drop-in fuel. 

If expanded methanol comes to pass, and the marine industry contracts due to trade barriers, then oil grades will drop in price.  If jetfuel continues to climb in demand, then upgraders will have to be built rapidly, in necessary cobbled together from stuff scavenged from closed refineries, and then price will increase, perhaps dramatically.  So the picture remains both fluid and murky. 

Almost any ship can be converted to LNG as well. I know little about engines and know that you do. What is involved in converting to methanol? China has been considering using methanol in diesel trucks for forty years without it catching on yet. https://chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10129-Could-methanol-replace-diesel- 

http://www.ngvglobal.com/ Many LNG ships reported on these pages. 

https://www.methanol.org/production/

Edited by ronwagn
added reference

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3 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I would disagree in part with the analysis of William Edwards.  It is my view, and I have nothing to substantiate it except my dour and cynical view of international regulatory agencies, that IMO 2020 will end up with the oil equivalent of "waivers."  The marine industry is simply not ready for a wholesale switchover to low-sulfur, or ultra-low sulfur, fuels.  There are no scrubbers being put on existing boats.  Everyone is taking the attitude that fuel problems need to be sorted  out outside the ship, that the delivery of the fuel has to meet specifications before it is loaded on board.  Meanwhile the refiners are not up to speed to provide the necessary quantities, unless you divert from truck diesel, generator diesel, jetfuel, and agricultural diesel.  And that is not going to happen.

So the real issue is:  will outlier fuelling ports, say  in Africa, simply cheat?  Will China cheat?  Will Singapore cheat?  They just might. 

The industry is more likely to switch to  burning methanol than they are to attempting to install scrubbers.  How fast can tat changeover be done?  Not that fast; there are too many boats out there.  But it is logical that methanol is going to be the drop-in fuel. 

If expanded methanol comes to pass, and the marine industry contracts due to trade barriers, then oil grades will drop in price.  If jetfuel continues to climb in demand, then upgraders will have to be built rapidly, in necessary cobbled together from stuff scavenged from closed refineries, and then price will increase, perhaps dramatically.  So the picture remains both fluid and murky. 

We see the global balance quite differently, Jan. Yes, cheating will occur. But there will be ample supplies of diesel-type fuel, I suspect. And remember, flash-corrected crude is a perfectly fine bunker fuel.

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2 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Almost any ship can be converted to LNG as well. I know little about engines and know that you do. What is involved in converting to methanol? China has been considering using methanol in diesel trucks for forty years without it catching on yet. https://chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10129-Could-methanol-replace-diesel- 

http://www.ngvglobal.com/ Many LNG ships reported on these pages. 

https://www.methanol.org/production/

In the marine application, you have a great big engine turning quite slowly, perhaps between 90 and 300 rpm.  Heavy oil is injected and compressed to a high number, perhaps 18:1 compression ratio, and the heat of compression sets off the burning.  When you go to methanol, effectively you have to convert that big old engine into a "gasoline engine," complete with a spark-plug for spark-ignition.  The first thing you have to do is lower the compression ratio.  The typical way that is done is to replace the entire cylinder head with a new casting, one that has a larger area for the gases inside (and thus a lower compression ratio) and a different fuel injection system.  Fortunately, big lumbering giant marine diesels have an independent head on top of each cylinder, so it is not as if you have to cast some gigantically complicated massive cylinder head to cover all of them at once, as you would with say a tractor engine.  

You will be dropping the compression ratio way down, perhaps to 5:1, although some guys have been successful with 9:1, albeit with changes to the valve intake points and thus a different camshaft, which is a big bear to install in an existing marine diesel.  Huge job. 

Then you have to add a system to fire those spark plugs and that involves an ECU, or electronic control module, and individual coil-on-plug igniters, and special wires, but all that is easy enough to do.  And you will have to change the plumbing to flow the methanol into the engine.

Another way to change over is to remove the pistons and connecting rods and mill the tops down so that the top of the piston head is flat and well below the deck of the engine.  That gets to be a lot of work, but likely to get you a better performance.  Or you install replacement pistons and shorter connecting rods, also a lot of work but not an impossible task, as big marine diesels are designed to be able to do that at sea. You can actually stop an engine in the middle of the ocean and change out a piston and connecting rod in about eight hours, if your ship mechanics know what they are doing. 

The fuel tank remains a receptacle for liquid fuel, so it is a drop-in replacement in that sense.  Methanol will absorb water and become corrosive, so to do it right you  would likely open up the ship tanks and spray them down with an epoxy coating, and create seals to prevent moisture entrance.  And you have to pressurize those tanks with nitrogen, flushing out air, as the vapors of the methanol can be explosive, and you don't want to blow that tank, might be a bad day at sea.  All of that stuff is rather minor in the context of changing over a marine diesel. 

The "biggie" in methanol is that is has a much lower energy density than diesel.  You can figure on perhaps 57,000 BTU/gal for methanol, against say 130,000 BTU/gal. for diesel.  So you will need to burn quite a bit more methanol in volume for your sea voyage, or alternatively tanker more fuel for the shorter trip.  It is not really a weight penalty as you simply run with less ballast.  But that is a factor to consider. 

It is not realistic to attempt to change an ocean freighter to LNG after the fact, as the LNG tanks have to be on an open weather deck in the rear, to allow fumes and vapors to disperse.  If that is not designed in into the layout, then the real estate is just not there to install those big tanks.  Trust this explains, Cheers.

Edited by Jan van Eck
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Thanks for the explanation. I hope that it can be done as needed. I hear that bunker fuel is worse than diesel and has been commonly used. I am not against diesel, just always looking for better options. Once in a while, I see some old diesel trucks spewing black smoke when accelerating but nothing like the old days. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil

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