Charleston to use “ultra low” sulfur fuel

Charleston to use “ultra low” sulfur fuel

Charleston to use “ultra low” sulfur fuel

The South Carolina State Ports Authority said it will begin using a cleaner-burning ultra-low sulfur diesel at its container terminals in Charleston.

   The port said federal law will require use of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel in all off-road equipment by 2010, but that it would receive its first deliveries of the fuel this week, initially for use in rubber-tired gantry cranes.

   Storage tanks that supply fuel to about 70 other pieces of on-terminal equipment such as stacking cranes and yard trucks will be filled later, the port authority said. It purchases about one million gallons of diesel fuel annually.

   The low sulfur fuel it had been using met a standard of 500 parts per million sulfur and that the new ultra-low sulfur fuel would meet a standard of 15 ppm, the port authority said. The new fuel would reduce particulate matter by an estimated 10 percent, the port said