Grupo Amasua, Spain

With a fleet of 27 fishing vessels, the fleet freezing-trawlers of Amasua Group (Krustagroup) began its activity in the mid-1970s, heading for the sub-Saharan fishing grounds.

In the waters of Mozambique, 11 vessels fish for shrimp and deep-water prawns.

GRUPO AMASUA reduce diesel consumption

The Amasua Group’s objective is to actively participate in the reduction of pollutant gas emissions, as well as to reduce diesel consumption and improve the management of its vessels.

Two units of this fleet, the Krustamoz I and Krustamoz II, have been using XBEE Enzyme Fuel Technology since the start of the 2007 campaign. The results achieved after six months, as reported by Manuel Lijo, Technical Director of the Amasua Group, are very positive:

During the period that lasted the first fuel intake treated with XBEE, a significant increase of dirt in the fuel filters was noticed, both in the general ones and in the specific ones of each engine.

From the second intake of fuel treated with XBEE onwards, the dirt in the filters decreased and, consequently, the time between filter changes increased.

At the moment, the time for filter changes is much longer than the other ships in our fleet that do not use XBEE; a 100 % reduction in this concept can be observed.

Fuel consumption, as these are fishing vessels that do not operate under power, we cannot quantify it. However, we believe that it is significantly lower than that of the other vessels. This is due to the cleanliness of the fuel, which we believe has a higher calorific value.

The eight Krustamoz vessels operating in Mozambique are scheduled to stop in South Africa in November. Here we will observe the cleaning of fuel tanks between the different vessels and can draw further conclusions.

For all the above reasons, we will be using XBEE next season on all our vessels. At the moment we believe that, even if it is only for the cleaning of the fuel and therefore the saving of filters in these engines, in the long run we will also have a considerable saving in changing injectors and decarbonisation of cylinder heads, as combustion is much more effective.

Manuel LijoTechnical Director

Grupo Amasua

Huelva, Spain