{
  "id": 5066684,
  "title": "Biofuel blending can take fuel below MFM validated range – GCMD",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/02/biofuel-blending-can-take-fuel-below-mfm-validated-range-gcmd",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-09-02T10:00:51.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Hellenic Shipping News",
    "slug": "hellenic-shipping-news",
    "url": "https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/biofuel-blending-can-take-fuel-below-mfm-validated-range-gcmd/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) warns that blending FAME-based biofuel with residual marine fuel grades, such as VLSFO and HSFO, can cause viscosity levels to fall below the validated range of mass flow meters (MFMs). MFMs are designed to provide reliable measurements within specific validated operating ranges that are tailored to the marine fuel grade they handle. Barges are configured accordingly – those primarily supplying residual grades like VLSFO and HSFO are validated for a higher viscosity range, while barges processing distillates like LSMGO are validated for a lower range.\n\nWhen biofuel blends are made with residual grades, their lower viscosity can push the blend's final viscosity outside the MFMs' validated range. This inaccuracy can affect measurement uncertainty, which is typically +/- 0.5% within the validated range, but no longer guaranteed outside it. To address this issue, GCMD recommends measuring the blend's viscosity at transfer conditions before delivery, employing transfer temperature management, using higher-viscosity blend components, or utilizing MFMs validated over a broader range if necessary.\n\nMoreover, the GCMD emphasizes the importance of the renewable fraction in biofuel blends, as it determines the green premium that buyers pay and underpins greenhouse gas accounting and regulatory compliance. Suppliers often declare blend ratios like B24 or B30, but these are not independently verified. Laboratory tests can confirm the FAME content through standard lab analysis or radiocarbon dating for HVO blends, though both methods carry a margin of error that must be accounted for. Pure FAME may contain up to 3.5% non-ester material, impacting the measurable FAME content of the finished blend.\n\nGCMD suggests that renewable fractions should be explicitly declared in supply documents, specifying whether the fraction is by mass or volume and the fuel specification.",
  "summary": "Blending FAME-based biofuel with residual marine fuel grades like VLSFO and HSFO can push their viscosity outside the validated operating range of mass flow meters (MFMs), the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) said in a study. The study focuses on challenges faced by shipowners in securing the right quantity of bio-blended bunker supplies and ...",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}