Road Diesel in Boat

[Spirit of Glenans]

Harder to see if there is water in the separator.

Any residue of marked oil in the tank when you filled up with white diesel will, according to Customs and Excise, colour the fuel for up to twenty fills later. If you did seriously want some colour for differentiating water from fuel, I recon that a few ccs of two-stroke oil would provide some colour.

 

[Kelpie]

Well, I'm not making it up. When there's forecourt diesel in the rank, it appears completely clear in the separator bowl.
When it's red in the tank, the stuff in the bowl looks red.
Oh, and when it's green... well I think you can guess.

Maybe C&E are trying to put the frighteners on people?

 

[Davegriff]

In all the years I worked for Shell I was led to believe gasoil(red diesel) and Derv(white) diesel were identical apart from the dye added to denote tax status.

 

[NormanS]

In all the years I worked for Shell I was led to believe gasoil(red diesel) and Derv(white) diesel were identical apart from the dye added to denote tax status.

Yes but there are different varieties of diesel. For instance, the red diesel that I buy for my boat is also supplied to Calmac ferries, and is still high sulphur. This is fine for my engine, but causes problems with the Eberspacher. You win some, you lose some.

 

[sailorman]

Any residue of marked oil in the tank when you filled up with white diesel will, according to Customs and Excise, colour the fuel for up to twenty fills later. If you did seriously want some colour for differentiating water from fuel, I recon that a few ccs of two-stroke oil would provide some colour.

"Colour" or be detectable with chemical testing as in DERV testing

 

[Spirit of Glenans]

Well, I'm not making it up. When there's forecourt diesel in the rank, it appears completely clear in the separator bowl.
When it's red in the tank, the stuff in the bowl looks red.
Oh, and when it's green... well I think you can guess.

Maybe C&E are trying to put the frighteners on people?

When it's green it's been bought in Ireland

 

[BlueSkyNick]

Sounds like sales waffle.

Road Diesel is known legally as DERV -Diesel Engine Road Vehicle. Diesel sold for boats is known as Marine Gas Oil. The difference is taxation. My previous employer was a HMRC dyeing station as we used to receive and sell on fuel bunkers for naval and merchant vessels. Different suppliers may have their own ingredients but the only specific legal difference is the taxation class. We could, and did, receive white fuel from suppliers but before we could pass it on to ships it had to be dyed and then classed as Marine Gas Oil. Sometimes we would receive Marine Gas Oil from naval ships coming in to refit and before we could sell it on we had to re-dye it (even though it had already been dyed) and either keep it classed as MGO and only sell it to other ships or we could re-class it to what I remember being called rebated off road fuel or we could class it as waste oil and sell it for heating use. The MoD were a nightmare as they often sent white fuel from their depot which sometimes meant us doing an all nighter dyeing the stuff as you only get a set time to dye it before the HMRC start demanding the tax up front.
Fuel classed as Marine Diesel Oil is a much heavier fuel, usually black in colour and far less refined. There is also Intermediate Fuel Oil which is quite sludgy and Heavy Fuel Oil which is basically bitumen and used as fuel by deep sea vessels.

Most MGO is now sold as ultra low sulphur (the same as for road vehicles) as emissions regulations around the world get tighter. Quite often Ships have tighter regulations than cars these days.

In the Solent area almost all marine diesel is supplied from Esso at Fawley through WP. It is
- red
- 10 ppm sulphur
- max 1% bio. Road diesel is 7%

Premier have Soltron added at the refinery as a special arrangement.

 

[cryan]

In the Solent area almost all marine diesel is supplied from Esso at Fawley through WP. It is
- red
- 10 ppm sulphur
- max 1% bio. Road diesel is 7%

Premier have Soltron added at the refinery as a special arrangement.

What Esso supply will be Marine Gas Oil not Marine Diesel Oil which is heavier and black in colour. DERV may be allowed a 7% bio content but that doesn't mean it has that much. Also as I said different manufacturers have different recipes. But legally the only difference between DERV and MGO is its tax classification. Whether you buy Sainsbury's cheapo diesel or Shell V-Max its still DERV and Whether Esso Fawley or BP Grangemouth have the same formula or not its still MGO. You will probably find that Esso Fawley supply most of the Solent area petrol stations for cars too. Its probably exactly the same stuff.

 

[Jim@sea]

The petrol station near me sells Red Diesel from an ordinary forecourt pump at 98p a litre.

 

[B58]

Guys MGO and MDO are a different category entirely this is used by commercial shipping and not related to anything we buy at the pump.,

For automotive use we use DERV which meets ISO EN590 ultra low sulphur diesel with 7% FAME the Red diesel/heating oil should also be rated EN590 it shares the same sulphur 0.001% and 7%FAME (fatty acid methyl ester)
If you still use or can get Gas oil don't use it if your engine has common rail at it will cause problems. its OK for your 30year old Perkins/Lister etc..

 

[Plevier]

Not necessarily. Premier marinas (some/all?) sell a particular marine diesel. They say...

"WP Marine's Advanced Marine Diesel 10 is a low sulphur fuel containing 10ppm (parts per million) sulphur. This high quality fuel is recognised as FAME FREE and is guaranteed by Esso to contain less than 1% bio element.

Advanced Marine Diesel 10 also contains Soltron®. Specifically developed to work with marine diesel at a dilution rate 10,000:1, Soltron® contains a blend of 20 naturally occurring enzymes which combine inside the fuel tank to optimise the combustion process and enhance fuel efficiency. Soltron® also provides lubrication in low sulphur marine fuel oil and neutralises bacterial growth from contaminants. "

I recently filled up for the first time ever with red from Premier (Brighton). Previously in 3 boats I have only ever used white.
Unfortunately a bit of this red got spilled and found its way into the bilges. I've had little spills of white before and know what it smells like, this stuff STINKS much much worse. Dreadful. In conjunction with a rather nasty sea that wouldn't normally have affected me it was quite nauseating.
Either the diesel is different or else it must be the Soltron stuff.

 

[Barleycorn]

If you still use or can get Gas oil don't use it if your engine has common rail at it will cause problems. its OK for your 30year old Perkins/Lister etc..

The vast majority of recent tractor and other agricultural engines are common rail and run fine on Gas Oil.

 

[Jim@sea]

The continentals use it all the time, its all they have

I thought that until I was sitting at a riverside cafe in Bergerac when I saw these two people going to a River Tour Boat carrying 2 transparent 5 gallon drums of what looked like Red Diesel. The look they gave me when they saw me taking their photograph could not have been any different had they caught me having a Jimmy Saville moment with Joan of Arch.
Obviously they were using 35 sec Central Heating Fuel. (Red Diesel)

 

[caiman]

I've always known MGO as 'Marine' Gas Oil.Recently I was told that it actually stands for 'Marked' Gas Oil.After all,red is red(or green is green) and it is used in farm machinery etc,nothing to do with a 'marine' application so it kinda makes sense?Can anyone give me the authorative answer please?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers

 

[Bru]

Let's try and clarify some points of confusion

"Gas Oil" in itself is a bit of a meaningless misnomer as it can mean different things to different people

MGO (Marine Gas Oil) is a specific product not to be confused with "red diesel", "gas oil" etc. (as used in agriculrural, construction plant etc.) which products are actually closer to MDO (Marine Diesel Oil)

What is sold as bunker fuel to haulage companies and, with a red dye added, as red diesel in most marinas* etc. is usually basic diesel oil ex-refinery without additional additives. Unless otherwise specified it may contain FAME (eg. bio-diesel) up to 7% and will (probably) be low sulphur. The difference twixt this product and DERV fuel sold on the petrol station forecourt is the additives added in the distrbution chain (anti-foaming agents, detergents, etc. etc) none of which will do any harm at all to a modern engine. That's what differentiates BP fuel from Shell fuel from Tescos fuel. Each company has it's own blend of additives (and I leave it up to you to decide whether the premium products are worth it 'cos I'm contrctually obliged to say that they are the best thing since they discovered the trick of gingering up a horse!)

The advantage, assuming a modern engine which is happy with low sulphur diesel, of using DERV purchased from a high volume outlet is that the fuel doesn't hang around long in the tanks (we use at least a tanker load of DERV a day, sometimes requiring a second tanker, and we're not a particularly busy forecourt) so you don't get problems with contamination. Because of the presence of bio in DERV I use Marine 16 at the recommended rate as a preventative measure against diesel bug

* There are exceptions - marinas selling guaranteed FAME free diesel for example will have made arrangements to be supplied with Marine Diesel Oil to ISO 8217:2010 rather than Gas Oil (Red Diesel) to BS EN 2869:2010 Class A2. It is only legal to supply MDO to vessels that go to sea outside of categorised waters by the way. Note that both MDO and Gas Oil are (or to be more acccurate may be) dyed red to indicate their duty band, the dye does NOT indicate the type of fuel

 

[caiman]

Thanks for the reply.
Cheers