Question about ship fuel

Had a question from a listener about ship fuel (this question ended up a little bit buried in the other blog messages so I thought I’d put it upfront here so it would be easy to see):

“i am curious about ships and refueling, fuel treatment onboard (heating, fuel viscousity etc)? do ships have enough fuel on board for a round trip or just one way? how do they refuel? does a barge come out or does the ship pull up? also how do they start those big engines? do they just turn a key and crank it over like a small boat or is there a process? thanks boomer”

I’ll check into this and post comments asap, and will discuss Friday on the Ship Report.

- Joanne