French subsidy for Ecoslops desulphurisation project

The company, which upgrades ship-generated hydrocarbon residue (or slops) into marine fuels (IFO and MDO), has won France’s Future Programme’s Worldwide Innovation Challenge. The award, in the ‘collection, sorting and recycling’ category, is for the P2R- MDO project on the desulphurisation of MDO.

The initiative aims to reduce the amount of sulphur in MDO by upgrading ship-generated slops to under 0.1%, in accordance with MARPOL Annex VI regulations, concerning Emission Control Areas (ECAs).

Vincent Favier, CEO, Ecoslops, said: “Innovation is the only way to provide ship owners and port authorities with an effective environmental and technical solution for the sustainable disposal of slops. This prestigious award and financial subsidy demonstrates the viability of our technology, and the significant and positive impact that it can have within shipping as the industry looks to further improve its sustainability credentials.”

Ecoslops’ first micro-refinery commenced industrial production in Sinès last year. So far the company has successfully regenerated over 10,000 tonnes of slops into marine fuel oil to be sold back into the marine fuel supply chain. Ecoslops reported that it is on target to run the refinery at its full production capacity of 2,500 tonnes per month (30,000 tonnes per year) by the end of 2016.

Further projects are in development is Constanta on the Black Sea, and in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, and the company is also working on two new sites in the ARA (Antwerp-Rotterdam-Amsterdam) region and the Mediterranean. Ecoslops has also begun talks for new facilities in Egypt, elsewhere in the Middle East and South Africa.