A study conducted by the Central Institute of Fisheries, Nautical & Engineering Training (CIFNET) on retrofitting fishing vessels with LPG kits has found that the operating cost of LPG-driven vessels would be around 66% less than traditional kerosene-powered engines.
The gist of the report tabled in the Assembly reveals that a fishing vessel with an outboard motor (OBM) using kerosene requires around 8 litres of kerosene for propelling it for one hour in a day, thus working up to about 1,400 litres a month (when calculated upon seven working hours a day and an average of 25 days a month). Considering the market price of kerosene at ₹124 per litre, the monthly fuel bill would come around ₹1,73,600 for kerosene-driven vessels.
Whereas, LPG-powered vessels require only 3.2 kg of LPG to power them for an hour and require only 560 kg of fuel per month, incurring a monthly fuel bill of ₹58,800 as a kg of LPG costs only ₹105. In short, fishermen can save up to ₹1,14,800 as operating costs when switching to LPG, which is around 66% less than kerosene engines.
K.S. Vinod, senior instructor, marine engineering, CIFNET, said the first test run of the fishing vessel with retrofitted LPG kits of a private firm at Aluva was done in 2006. However, the result was not much promising as the 9.9 HP LPG-powered engine could reduce only up to 10% of the operating costs as the kit was based on vapour off-take technology, which sucks the fuel in the form of vapour from the cylinder. Further, towing power, which is essential for breaking the wave power of the Arabian Sea, was relatively less compared to kerosene engines.
“Later, the company came up with a new kit based on liquid off-take technology, which sucks the fuel in the form of liquid, in 2021 which was quite good as the cost of the operation came down by around 65% for 9.9 HP engines and 66% 25 HP engines with no power loss even during rough sea conditions with maximum load,” said Mr. Vinod.
Subsequently, the report was submitted to the Centre and the State governments. The Centre then gave permission to do a trial run on 1,000 LPG-driven vessels across the country.
Speaking to The Hindu, Fisheries director Adeela Abdulla said in the case of Kerala, test runs have already been done with 10 such boats in Alappuzha and field trials at Vizhinjam. “The results were encouraging. Now, we have asked the Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT) to submit a report analysing the performance of the field trials before switching to LPG,” said Ms. Abdulla.