Complications in the fuel change in the period where vessels cross from the open sea to an Emission Control Area (ECA) can, in extreme cases, cause ships to lose power. According to the Korean Register (KR) the current practice in this critical period is to rely on the knowledge and experience of the chief engineer which, the class society says, can lead to: "burning more of the expensive low sulphur fuel than is necessary". In an effort to aid ship operators, KR has developed FOCO, Fuel Oil Change Over, software developed specifically as an aid to chief engineers to make the change from HFO to low sulphur fuel as smooth as possible. ECA zones require all ships to burn fuel with 0.1% sulphur content from 1 January this year, meaning that ships are required to either fit scrubber technology or switch from high sulphur content fuel, HFO, to the more expensive low sulphur distillate fuel.
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