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2013
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international
Engine room Running on gas
Scrubbers: to clean or not to clean? Europe and the future of ship recycling Major innovations in antifouling Eyes on the prize: MRV is coming
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Official Publication:
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2013
Autumn
international
Publisher: W H Robinson Editor: John Rickards (john.rickards@mar-media.com) Sub editor: Samantha Robinson Designer: Justin Ives (justindesign@liveco.uk) No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means including photocopying or recording, without the permission of the publisher. Written permission must be obtained before any part of this publication is stored in a retrieval system. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. The publisher has tried to ensure all information is accurate, but emphasises it cannot take responsibility for any mistakes or omissions. The publisher does not accept responsibility for the advertising content in this publication.
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Innovation & Dynamics. Nitrogen PSA Generators. Worldwide Service.
True Excellence Worldwide Manufacturer of Nitrogen PSA Generators
Phone: +45 48 79 78 11 Fax: +45 48 79 78 13 www.oxymat.com E-mail: sales@oxymat.com
Contents 5
On watch
Yards
5
A summer of shifting sands
Welcome to the second issue of Green Shipping.
News 8
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34 A question of leadership Will the European Commission’s LeaderSHIP 2020 strategy help Europe’s shipping yards out of the economic crisis?
IMO pushes back NOx limit
The IMO working group reviewing MARPOL Annex VI at this May’s MEPC meeting controversially decided to delay the introduction of emission control areas for NOx by five years.
Classification 36 Class wars
Classification societies have the largest role to play as shipowners switch to LNG, but who are the front runners in the field?
Ballast water
14 Smoothing troubled waters
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Always a contentious issue, the Ballast Water Management Convention has now been amended to make life easier for shipowners.
Engine room
16 Running on gas
As controls on sulphur emissions get ever-tighter, owners are increasingly looking at LNG as a viable fuel for newbuildings. Green Shipping examines the issues.
Emissions
20 Scrubbing up nicely?
24
38 Coatings scrunch up to shake fouling
22 Film star An adhesive foil-backed film, Thorn-D is an innovative entrant to the world of anti-fouling systems that is gathering a host of fans.
42 Boxing clever
24 Mandatory monitoring
The European Commission has laid out its plans for mandatory CO2 emissions monitoring in the maritime industry, with all ships over 5,000gt calling at or departing from EU ports required to monitor and report on shipboard CO2 generation from the start of 2018.
44 Clean Sky thinking
46
This year has seen a merry dance around European ship recycling rules, condemnation at different stages from all sides and an end result that many see as a watered-down exercise in bureaucracy likely to have little real impact at all.
Green Shipping spoke to Lloyd’s Register’s Nick Brown to learn more about the choices made in the Clean Sky bulker design and the reasons behind them.
Geographical focus 46 Fighting for air
Recycling
28 Testing times for European recycling
Maersk has called on the EU to take firm action on the phase-out of HCFC-insulated reefer containers and close the current loophones that enable the practice to continue.
Design
Efficiency 34
Researchers at Duke University in the US have developed a novel antifouling material that “wrinkles” on demand to shake loose bacteria and other microorganisms.
Law
Shipowners remain wary of installing scrubbers, but they could be basing their views on historical data that is no longer relevant.
Coatings
Technology
Air quality in Hong Kong has long been a serious issue and campaigners are worried the new Kai Tak cruise terminal will make matters worse. Green Shipping finds out what moves are under way to improve the situation.
Events 48 Keep up with the debate on green issues
We highlight the key gatherings for the shipping industry.
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3
On watch
A summer of shifting sands Welcome to the second issue of Green Shipping. The maritime industries need an authoritative and thought-provoking resource providing news and comment on the many pressing environmental challenges shipping now faces. This publication and our free-access online news service at www.greenshippinginternational.com meet this need
The year has some life in it yet, but we’ve already seen a swathe of potentially – and so-close-to-potentially – major changes in the regulatory framework the industry’s environmental performance is measured against. Some of this change has undoubtedly been good, some rather more debatable. NOx and ballast water treatment system installation have been knocked further back by the IMO and ferries and short sea ro-ro operators now have an EEDI benchmark to call their own. Owners operating in Europe almost had to contend with a scrapping levy on every port call but dodged the bullet, but are now very likely to have to measure their CO2 emissions in a couple of years’ time. Our regular feature on ballast water treatment goes into the changes made to the less-than-perfect Ballast Water Management Convention (BWMC) that fix installation dates to its entry into force and not to what would have been effectively straight after ratification. Despite some minor reservations from manufacturers, few owners are likely to complain, even if other problematic aspects of the BWMC remain unfixed. Those few who do come off badly are early adopters whose ships aren’t involved in the US trade. But if the BWMC languishes unratified for too much longer, what odds would owners get on more port states following the US and adopting their own rules anyway? In ship recycling, the European authorities spent half the year circling around attempts to include – and go beyond – the requirements of the Hong Kong
Convention (HKC), which had the industry up in arms over a proposed, and dropped, port calls levy to subsidise OECD-only recycling for EU-flagged ships. But while the watered-down final product might be acceptable to owners and allow EU members who haven’t done so to ratify the HKC, has it been worth the effort given that unilateral flag-based restrictions are so easily circumvented by flagging out? The HKC is a sound instrument, but the slow pace of adoption, especially by recycling nations, is only going to keep up pressure on politicians, especially within the EU, for their own sanctions. One thing that hasn’t changed – yet – is the sulphur cap for ECAs. Some owners’ groups have been very vocal in calls for temporary exemptions or exclusions from the rules in 2015, citing the costs of fuel switching or the (as some say) unreliability or incompatibility (as others) of scrubbers. The lack of change here is perhaps unsurprising: the MARPOL limits have been on the horizon for plenty of time now and while it might be a bitter pill to swallow, especially for short sea operators in difficult markets facing massive cost rises, it’s a case where the solutions – distillate, scrubber, or LNG – aren’t likely to change much in the space of an exclusion window. It might be unpalatable for some, but is probably unavoidable. John Rickards Editor
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Company profile
Oxymat: meeting environmental challenges Marine conditions pose a number of challenges and issues, such as size, weight, rough sea conditions, corrosion, high temperatures and cargo needing protection, to mention just a few. At the same time, concerns regarding the environmental impact by this industry is increasing. Danish based company Oxymat is continuously finding new ways to meet customer requirements and to reduce the impact on the environment. A promising new design is expected to reduce energy consumptions and CO2-emissions even further. “At Oxymat, we believe that economic growth and the continuous demand for development and general well-being of our society is linked to the health of our environment,” says Jesper Sjögren, CEO and owner of Oxymat. ”We believe that we can make a difference and we take our responsibility seriously. We aim to continuously improve and optimise and we actively work to reduce the environmental impact of our business activities.” Oxymat has more than 35 years of experience in inert gas systems and the company has delivered more than 2,500 systems for hospitals, breweries, marine and refineries, to name a few. The Marine & Offshore division produces N2 PSA systems to the marine industry with the necessary experience and know-how to address a broad variety of issues. Compared to a traditional membrane-based system, Oxymat PSA generators already consume 25-75% less energy than membrane systems. The result is lower CO2 emissions, which is a key issue in today’s marine industry. “Keeping focus on product development without compromising the environmental issues costs resources. Therefore, we are constantly strengthening and expanding our R&D activities. At present, we have five full-time dedicated R&D engineers in Slovakia and we will be expanding the group in the future,”Sjögren says.“During 2014, we expect to see new results from our R&D team. We are working on a completely new design – a new principle of functionality – which we expect will be introduced to the market in the near future. Again, of course, the sole objective is to cut energy consumption even further. It is a top priority of ours and it will bring us even further in front”.
“The total power consumption for a 1.000 m3/hour is now 200 kW giving a kW/N2 factor of 0.2 kW per m3 Nitrogen produced. Modern membrane systems typically use 0,4kW per m3,” Sjögren explains. According to Sjögren, the system can be installed in very short time on board any vessel, as water cooling pipes and pressure pipes for two compressors and one dryer is all the preparation needed. The system is “plug and play”: one single electrical connection is needed and all other connections regarding monitoring and control consist of a few hybrid cables (such as LAN) During the past few years, Oxymat has used many R&D resources in developing this new generation of nitrogen systems for the marine industry. Focus has been on making the system as simple as possible, removing components that were costly and not needed. Sjögren continues: “During the R&D process of developing this system, we have developed our own flow monitoring and control system, enabling us to control flow and air consumption in an intelligent way. We have eliminated the use of air and nitrogen receivers to minimise cost, footprint and energy consumption”. The systems are developed in a series of 15 units from 300 m3/hour to 10,000 , m /hour all with extremely small footprints. A 1500 m3/hour system only uses 11 m2 of space for machinery.
Introducing the SVIGG – saving time in dock and reducing the environmental impact
Oxymat’s generators are based on the well-known PSA (Pressure Swing Absorption technology) using two pressurised columns with molecular sieves to ensure continuous production. Dry compressed air is blown through a valve to the vessel where the pressure is built to reach 5 to 7 bar(g). Oxygen is tied to a molecular sieve as the pressure builds and the nitrogen is allowed to pass through to the accumulation tank. While pressure is building in the vessel, the second remains without pressure. A part of the produced gas is used for regeneration of the molecular sieve, which, in the case of nitrogen, is a carbon molecular sieve (CMS). The molecular sieve is fully regenerative and has a life span of up to 40,000 operation hours.
Earlier this year, Oxymat broadened the product portfolio even further to include a dedicated supply vessel inert gas generator (SVIGG). The SVIGG is a plant designed specifically for offshore and platform supply vessels – and with a highly compact and flexible system, the expectations for the product are huge. “Typically, nitrogen generators are composed by a plant dimensioned in order to generate directly from generator to consumption in the cargo hold. Now the concept has been changed” Sjögren explains. “As Supply Vessels typically transport smaller volume cargos which require less volume of nitrogen to safeguard against explosions and fire-hazards, the standard nitrogen generators are often relatively big compared to the requirements. By introducing a high pressure booster compressor and a fully automated bottle station the resulting product is much more appropriate to the needs and purposes”. Technically speaking, by using the booster and cylinders the size of the nitrogen generator is less dependent on the flow requirement and, according to Oxymat, it is far easier to dimension the system just by adjusting the number of cylinders and thereby the stored amount of nitrogen in the cylinder station. This new system from Oxymat eliminates the need for recharging bulk cylinders in dock, saving both time, money – and, in the end, also reducing the impact on the environment!
The Oxymat Marine Generator series
Strengthening our lead position in partnership with Pres-Vac
PSA technology
The Oxymat X4 nitrogen generator series is based on PSA technology. The construction of the X4 series is characterised by simple construction and high reliability and the system can be adjusted to the given space on board. Oxymat has developed the Nitrogen Generator System with the smallest footprint on the market. The system is easily installed and, of course, has the lowest possible energy consumption.
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“We have, during the past few years, focused on forming strategic partnerships with other players in the market. In the general industry, large gas companies see the opportunities and advantages of teaming up with Oxymat – and vice versa. We envisage major development opportunities in the marine segment – even more than we can achieve on our own. Therefore, we have entered into a partnership with Pres-Vac,” says Sjögren. “Pres-Vac has been the market leader for more than
Company profile
65 years in venting systems to the global tanker industry. The partnership offers new, exciting and cost-saving opportunities for customers. The companies are establishing a new combined brand, continuing their growing success in dedicated nitrogen inert gas systems to the marine and offshore sector. The nitrogen inert gas systems remove oxygen and, consequently, the fuel for potential explosions and fires on board carriers such as chemical tankers and oil extraction plants. “Together with Pres-Vac, we are launching a campaign to promote advanced inert gas systems to the world’s largest shipping companies, shipyards and oil extraction companies,” Sjögren explains. “We are looking forward to working alongside Pres-Vac to develop innovative products at the cutting edge of customers’ needs. We will be striving to reduce not only the environmental impact, but also the price even further. If we want to survive in the market, of course, the two need to go hand-in -hand and not one rule out the other.”
Our company – Oxymat
Oxymat has become one of the largest worldwide players in the nitrogen business, with more than 70 employees worldwide. With headquarters in Helsinge, Denmark, Oxymat’s main operation takes place in its Slovakian production facilities. Establishing sales offices in China and Columbia during the past couple of years has been a part of a new strategy and it seems to have been the correct move to make. “Increasing sales in the regions where we are regionally presented tells us not to underestimate the value of local presence” Jesper Sjögren says. regionally presented tells us not to underestimate the value of local presence” Jesper Sjögren says – “June 1st 2012 our third service and sales office outside Denmark opened, this time in Bogota, Columbia. We are represented in more than 30 countries and our staff count seven different nationalities speaking more than 10 different languages.” The Oxymat service hotline is available 24/7 365 days a year and the staff work around the clock servicing every area on the globe. “Our 70 employees, including 20 engineers and 10 skilled technicians, form a very competent unit, which, with our new ‘service within 48 hours’ principle, can service everywhere from Greenland to the Amazon at very short notice,” Sjögren says. “Availability is key to us and our partners appreciate our flexibility and ability to service them wherever they are. Partners as well as customers expect us to be there – and we will be there,” Jesper Sjögren concludes.
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News
IMO pushes back NOx limit The IMO working group reviewing MARPOL Annex VI at this May’s MEPC meeting controversially decided to delay the introduction of emission control areas for NOx by five years. Previously, strict limits in ECAs for NOx were due to come into effect in 2016. Now they will not do so until 2021, assuming the change is voted for at 2014’s MEPC meeting Currently, the only NOx ECA laid out is the North American coast, although there have been moves to make the Baltic one just as it is a sulphur ECA. The emissions limits for NOx would see a cap of roughly a quarter of current average emissions while in a control area. While some scrubbing technology claims to have an impact on NOx emissions, the principal options available to shipowners at present have been the use of SCR systems and switching fuels to LNG. The decision to push back the timeframe for enforcement of the new ECAs has been met with confusion by manufacturers of catalytic reduction equipment and slammed by environmental pressure groups campaigning against air pollution from shipping. Transport & Environment clean shipping officer Antoine Kedzierski said: “Today’s decision to delay ship engine NOx standards is a shameful act by the IMO, and nothing less than a disaster. Two years before the entry into force of the next emissions limit, the IMO punishes those who have chosen to invest in clean innovation in order to comply and rewards those who have cynically waited and lobbied for postponement. The call was led by Russia, but the lack of a common EU position is also to blame, with Poland, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Latvia and Estonia all toeing the Russian line. This decision will not only kill high-value jobs in the clean-tech industry, but will also increase emissions that have serious impacts on the environment and human health.”
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Owners may have five years longer to wait before a NOx cap comes into effect in emission control areas
© atomicjeep
John Maggs from fellow NGO Seas at Risks called for the EU to enforce unilateral measures without the IMO: “If left unregulated, shipping will soon become the biggest source of NOx emissions in Europe, exceeding all land-based emissions put together. Due to IMO’s sudden and abrupt change of direction, Europe should now act by itself and set clean engine standards at EU level.”
Diana Shipping guilty in “magic pipe” case Greek-based bulk carrier operator Diana Shipping was found guilty in August this year, along with two of the company’s engineers, of bypassing their ship’s oily water separator using a so-called “magic pipe” and falsifying entries in the oil record book of the bulker Thetis. Sentencing is due to be carried out in November, and Ioannis Prokakis and Antonios Boumpoutelos could face prison terms of several years, while the company faces a maximum fine of US$5.5m and five years’ probation. The 12-day trial saw them convicted of conspiracy, knowing failure to fully maintain an oil record book, falsification of records and concealing tangible objects in a federal investigation. In addition, Prokakis was also convicted of obstruction of justice for ordering crew members to lie to US Coast Guard inspectors on board the ship. “The pollution of our oceans, the falsification of environmental records, and lying to the US Coast Guard are serious crimes,” said acting Assistant Attorney General Robert Dreher. “Companies and individuals that intentionally attempt to cover up these crimes and obstruct US Coast Guard investigations will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. “The oceans must be protected from shipping companies that cut corners and dump waste improperly,” said EPA special agent David G McLeod. “The defendants conspired to discharge oily waste from the M/V Thetis into the open water, falsified the ship’s record books and attempted to thwart the investigation. Today’s guilty verdict should send a clear message that our collaborative efforts will lead to the vigorous prosecution of those who despoil our oceans and violate our nation’s environmental laws.” Diana Shipping, Prokakis and Boumpoutelos, were indicted on 22 May this year in an 11-count superseding indictment alleging the illegal discharging of waste oil and oil-contaminated waste water in violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships. In September 2012, crew members of the Thetis reported that the vessel was discharging its bilge waste and sludge illegally by various means, including a magic pipe that bypassed the oily water separator. Coast Guard inspectors boarded the vessel when it entered port in Norfolk and discovered the magic pipe and that the oily water separator was non-functioning. The inspectors were also presented with an oil record book that contained false entries made by the ship’s Chief Engineer, Ioannis Prokakis, and the Second Engineer Antonios Boumpoutelos. During the inspection, Prokakis lied to inspectors about the pipe and told other members of the engineering crew to not disclose its existence to the Coast Guard inspectors.
Carnival pulls out of two US ports over sulphur limits Cruise giant Carnival confirmed in June this year that it will cease to serve the US ports of Baltimore and Norfolk ahead of the North America ECA’s 0.1 percent sulphur limit coming into effect in 2015. Rumours of the decision had swirled for a while beforehand, with reports that Maryland governor Martin O’Malley was trying to persuade the US Environment Protection Agency to relax or hold back the limits in a last-ditch attempt to keep cruise business in Baltimore. The line confirmed that the Carnival Glory will be rebasing from Norfolk to Miami in November this
year, while the Carnival Pride will stop weekly sailings to the Caribbean from Baltimore in November 2014 and move to Tampa if the EPA will not accept an extension allowing it to evaluate scrubber technology and install it at already-scheduled drydockings. The cruise line noted that itineraries operating out of the north of the US East Coast are most affected by the increased costs the low sulphur requirement will bring as vessels spend longer within the ECA limit and Baltimore, in particular, as it lies on Chesapeake Bay. Critics of the company have accused it of trying to bully the EPA into waiving the rules. Carnival’s competitors have remained relatively tight-lipped about their own options, although Royal Caribbean is heavily pursuing scrubber fitting for its fleet. The industry’s operating and public relations group Cruise Lines International Association released a report last year suggesting that the sulphur limits would see 202 fewer weekly itineraries in the US cruise market, principally in Alaska where routes are entirely within ECA limits, and a US$1.5bn hit to the US and Canadian economies. CLIA’s assessment was criticised by lobby group Clean Air Watch, who said: “A closer review of the CLIA economic analysis shows that it fails to adequately assess the costs of implementing the ECA regulation, oversimplifies market impacts, and ignores the program’s significant benefits.” “CLIA was present at IMO throughout this process and participated in those negotiations. CLIA and the cruise industry have known about, and had time to prepare for, the impending standards since they were finalised in 2008,” it said.
The Pride will cease sailing to the Caribbean and Mexico from next year.
© Lisa Andres
ISO standard for hull and propeller performance drawing closer Norwegian coatings firm Jotun is leading a new ISO expert group tasked with developing a draft standard for the measurement of changes in hull and propeller performance. The company had been pushing for the establishment of such a standard for 18 months alongside NGO the Bellona Foundation and Standard Norway, first presenting the initial concept proposal to the IMO’s MEPC in February last year. The trio claim that through hull and propeller performance savings the world’s fleet could reduce its fuel costs by up to US$30bn per year and achieve a 0.3 percent drop in man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Having been successful in mobilising the industry to reach agreement on measurement methods through a string of workshops and presentations, the group’s New Work Item Proposal has been approved by the ISO. www.greenshippinginternational.com
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“Broad stakeholder involvement from the start to the end of this process is absolutely critical,” said Jotun’s Geir Axel Oftedahl. “Our objective is to win industry acceptance for a method for measuring changes in hull and propeller performance. To achieve this goal, we need to ensure that the standard delivers on the requirements and expectations of all relevant stakeholders.” The expert group will take between six and 12 months to produce a draft standard, making it most likely the first half of 2014 before it first emerges. Jotun has been asked to lead the work on the draft and will share its experience and data within the area of hull and propeller performance. “We are pleased to see that a number of other stakeholders have already agreed to contribute, and call on others with interests and capabilities within the area of hull and propeller performance to do the same,” said Oftedahl. “If we are successful in reaching general agreement on a method for measuring hull and propeller performance, it will make a substantial contribution to the industry – and help align the interests of shipowners, charterers, shipbuilders and eco-technology providers such as Jotun.” The Bellona Foundation’s Svend Søyland said that identifying overlaps between cost savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions made sense. “It is our firm belief that a transparent and reliable standard will enable a level playing field, spurring innovation among all stakeholders,” he said.
Interferry gets its way with EEDI changes May’s meeting of the MEPC saw ferry operators’ group Interferry win its long push for modifications to the basic EEDI formula, with the need for changes accepted by the IMO. A specific newbuild ro-pax version of the EEDI will come into effect from 2016 in place of the standard cargo vessel formula. Ferries had already been granted a two-year extension to the 2013 entry into force date to put forward changes that would address the sector’s specialised power requirements and widely varying ship types. Interferry and owners had argued that the standard version focused on reducing design speed rather than optimising vessel design, something they claimed would have strangled their ability to replace ships in the host of markets that compete with road transport. Interferry’s Johan Roos said: “It is highly positive that a relatively small sector of the global shipping industry has been able to come together and provide the detailed technical expertise needed to demonstrate a feasible way forward. We would like to acknowledge that several flag states, which also include Belgium and Finland, have gone out of their way to develop a sustainable solution.” “Interferry never challenged the objective of the proposed regulation – not least because greater fuel efficiency is at the top of every ferry company’s agenda – but it was vital to recognise that deep sea and short sea shipping are very different industries.” The modified formula adopted at the MEPC follows intensive co-operation between Sweden, Germany, the European shipbuilders association CESA and Interferry on ro-ro and ro-pax measures, while work on other short sea segments was led by flag states including the Netherlands. Roos said the new EEDI would add a layer of complexity in the ship design process; fuel efficiency will be required to improve by 5% over existing designs from 2016, by at least 20% from 2020 and by a minimum of 30% from 2030. “Future ro-ro and ro-pax designs will have to be extremely innovative and advanced to meet these strict reduction requirements, but the MEPC 65 outcome is the best way to further improve the design and energy efficiency of new ferries while allowing them to remain competitive,” he said.
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Royal Academy of Engineering identifies “great potential” for emissions reduction A report from the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering published this July says that shipping has “great potential” to reduce emissions through new and modified propulsion technology, but that there is “no single or simple answer that will meet every need or that can be applied to every type of vessel”. The report looked at options including LNG, battery power, alternative fuels and nuclear power from the standpoint of efficiency and environmental sustainability. It said that further work was needed in two areas: adapting current maritime technologies to broader application in different types of ship, and to research and develop innovative new technology for propulsion. The 20-strong working party was led by John Carlton, Professor of Marine Engineering at City University London. He said there was no obvious single “winner” in terms of technology in the medium to long term and that operational issues were also an important contributor to power choices. “We know that larger ships are more carbon-efficient than smaller ships and that slower ship speeds effectively reduce emissions,” he said. “But fitting smaller engines in large ships may increase the risk of being under-powered in bad weather. Often there is significant benefit in simple operational measures: good seamanship in steering around bad weather for instance, or good housekeeping in minimising on-board energy consumption.” The working party identified a range of short-, medium- and long-term ship propulsion options: In the short term and with current propulsion units, it said that “LNG is a known technology with standards already in place and is cheaper and cleaner than diesel, but requires a global infrastructure.” Gas turbines were a niche and the fuel was expensive, while renewables such as wind and solar could have application as auxiliary sources of power. In the medium and long term, biofuels and synthetic fuels were potential direct replacements for current fuels, but “more needs to be done on the practicalities of storage, handling and environmental impact”. Fuel cells of varying kinds offered promise, but required infrastructure investment and technological development to meet shipboard power requirements. Ship-borne nuclear power has been used in naval ships, but for merchant shipping there would need to be changes in design, building and operational methods. Current battery technology may be restricted as a prime mover to smaller ships, but offered potential as an auxiliary power source. Further ahead, the report says that hydrogen could be an option for marine propulsion, but there are significant infrastructure issues as well as technology issues to be overcome. The Royal Academy of Engineering working party says that research and funding is needed to take some of the ideas forward, and broader “technoeconomic” work is also needed to identify realistic targets in terms of emissions from the shipping industry. Sir John Parker, president of the Royal Academy of Engineering and himself formerly identified closely with the UK shipbuilding industry, said the report was both broad in its application and informed by the expertise that the working party had assembled. Sir John said: “Shipping is vital to the world economy. It is a critical part of international import and export markets and supports the global distribution of goods. As for all industries, concerns about climate change require the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the shipping sector. This entails higher fuel prices for low sulphur fuels. “It means that the industry must prepare for the new future and investigate alternative, more economic ship propulsion systems.”
Canada enforces North American ECA In May this year, Transport Canada announced that the emissions limits put in place by the North American ECA, already enforced in the US, would now apply to the country’s waters as well. Canada had delayed introduction of the standards for several months while it ironed out issues with implementation under national law through “significant additional discussions” with the country’s maritime industry. “The changes we are announcing today will help make our oceans and lakes cleaner by reducing ship emissions,” said Canada’s transport minister Denis Lebel. “Since vessels from Canada and the United States routinely travel in both countries’ waters, aligning our regulations is the logical thing to do.” In addition to reduced SOx and NOx under MARPOL, the country is also introducing new standards on grey water discharge in its waters, previously less stringent than their US counterparts. Under the regulations, grey water discharged into Canadian waters outside the Arctic, where separate standards are already in place, must not result in the deposit of solids or cause any sheen. Rules for oil transfer between tankers have also been updated to bring them in line with IMO standards. “Protecting our air and waterways from all ship-source pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions is a priority that our government takes very seriously,” said Lebel. “We are making progress on our Copenhagen commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 17% by 2020. Canada is now halfway towards meeting this target.”
German ferry first for LNG propulsion refit This summer, German domestic ferry operator EMS signed a deal with Wartsila to provide dual-fuel engines for retrofitting to its ferry Ostfriesland. The ro-pax sails between Emden and Borkum Island in the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Conversion work will be carried out in the second quarter 2014 at
Bremen’s BVT shipyard and is expected to take seven weeks. The retrofit contract shows that, in some cases at least, adopting scrubbers or switching to diesel fuel are not necessarily the only practical solutions for ferry operators whose ships work entirely within ECAs. The vessel will be fitted with two six-cylinder Wartsila dual-fuel generating sets and a fuel storage system. The dual-fuel engines will run primarily on LNG, but have the capacity to switch to conventional liquid fuels if necessary. The LNGPac gas system comprises on-board liquid natural gas bunkering, storage tanks, and handling equipment with related safety and automation systems. The contract also includes fitting Wartsila’s patented “Cold Recovery System”, which utilises the latent heat of LNG in air conditioning systems, thus reducing the amount of electricity consumed in cooling compressors. “It is of the utmost importance for us to operate the Ostfriesland in the most ecologically friendly manner possible, with low exhaust emissions, perfect manoeuvrability and high reliability. Thanks to Wartsila’s dual-fuel technology with its built-in redundancy, the vessel will be able to operate without restrictions in the SECA and NECA sulphur and nitrogen controlled areas. It was very important for us to select a reliable and experienced partner, especially as we will begin operating gas-electric driven passenger ferries,” said EMS’s Dr Bernhard Brons. “The owners of this vessel take environmental issues very seriously and since this vessel is operating within the ecologically sensitive Wadden Sea, emissions need to be minimised. Our dual-fuel engine technology makes this possible through the use of LNG as fuel. The high efficiency of this technology also lowers fuel consumption and offers extremely good reliability, both of which are important to any ferry operator,” said Wartsila’s Aaron Bresnahan.
DNV gains USCG BWTS status Norwegian class society DNV became the first society to gain “Independent Laboratory” status for evaluating and testing ballast water treatment systems from the US Coast Guard this summer as the USCG slowly moves to allow BWTS approvals under its own umbrella.
The engine replacement for the Ostfriesland will see a rare switch for an existing vessel to LNG as a fuel
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The first organisation of any kind to gain IL status was public health body NSF International in September last year. Previously, the only way BWTS have been able to be approved for use under US rules has been as “alternate management systems” evaluated by the USCG itself by review of their existing IMO type approval. DNV said it was fronting a joint effort between test facility DHI, Denmark and DNV Certification to test and evaluate systems in accordance with the USCG requirements. More test facilities in addition to DHI “are in the pipeline”, it claimed, to be added to DNV’s network of subcontractors worldwide. These include the Golden Bear Facility in California and Delta in Denmark. “With the IL status in place, we can now offer class, IMO and USCG approval to manufacturers of ballast water treatment systems,” said Jad Mouawad, DNV head of section for environmental protection. The class society said it was already well under way in testing two manufacturers of ballast water treatment systems in relation to the new ETV/USCG standard, as well as the IMO’s Ballast Water Management Convention’s G8 Guidelines.
Danish project examines older box ship efficiency A joint research project launched in Denmark this June will examine methods for cutting energy consumption on older box ships by up to a fifth. The project is a combined effort of the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation, MAN Diesel & Turbo, Maersk Line and DTU Mekanik, the Technical University of Denmark’s Mechanical Technology Department, and aims to address the technical and mechanical issues caused by slow steaming, and the wear and tear it creates on engines and propellers with respect to older existing ships which cannot economically be fitted with the newer engine systems and existing low speed-optimised technology already used on newbuilds. The three parties aim to develop new equipment and design new propellers adapted for existing container ships and say that their target group is the 500 box ships “built for a world with lower energy prices and fewer environmental requirements”. They claim the project has the potential to ensure economic gains running to an amount in the double-digit million range per ship. The project will study the interplay between the hull, propeller and the engine itself. DTU Mekanik has, along with MAN Diesel & Turbo have developed a tool
Older box vessels could see major efficiency savings if the project’s aims hold good
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that is able to calculate the interaction between the three components so that it is possible to customise the optimal solution for each series of ships. “In order to re-design propellers and engines, it is crucial that you know the precise conditions relating to the individual ship. Consequently, we have to modify the calculation tools we already have so that they are more capable of modelling the interaction between the ship and its propellers and we can go to the limits in the design of the propellers for the existing ships,” said Poul Andersen from DTU Mekanik. If the project is a success, the aim is to prototype it at sea, possibly on one of Maersk Line’s ships. “We are constantly challenging our ships in terms of operation and are seeking ways of making the existing fleet more efficient and environmentally friendly. This project is unique in its holistic approach to propeller design and engine performance optimised for lower speeds. With ambitions of saving 10-20% in energy, the project is, at the same time, an excellent opportunity to strengthen our cooperation on innovation with one of our core suppliers,” said Maersk’s Niels H Bruus.
MEPs call for tougher EU environmental disaster laws A hearing in the European Parliament in May saw MEPs call for a tougher compensation and damages regime for maritime environmental disasters. The demands were led by Corinne Lepage, chair of the Parliament’s Seas and Coastal Areas Intergroup. She called for tougher laws to ensure liability and enable damage payouts. “Making people fully aware of the potential costs of their action is the best form of prevention,” she said. “It is also essential to clarify the relevant jurisdiction to rule on the damage and I uphold the idea that the state that is the injured party must have jurisdiction to prosecute those responsible.” The hearing was a joint meeting between MEPs, commission representatives, national and regional authorities and NGOs, and was convened as a result of the appeals court ruling last September over the sinking of the Erika in 1999. The court upheld the initial conviction for French oil giant Total, finding it negligent in the sinking, and requiring the compant to pay damages and a fine of just over €200m, with roughly €13m of that for environmental damage caused by the 30,000 tonne oil spill. Lawyers for the defence had tried to argue that the French law on which the prosecution was based was invalid as it contradicted France’s obligations under international maritime law. French MEP Isabelle Thomas said: “The time is now ripe to introduce ecological damage into EU law. At present, there is a gap between the law as it exists and what societies throughout Europe expect from it. “First, any such convictions are a legitimate clampdown on those who make regional and local authorities bear the burden caused by their reckless risk-taking. “Second, the cost will deter © Claire P carriers from carrying out all forms of dumping and will thus serve as a prevention tool.”
Ballast water
Smoothing troubled waters Always a contentious issue, the Ballast Water Management Convention has now been amended to make life easier for shipowners The Ballast Water Management Convention (BWMC) has been contentious since its introduction in 2004, with owners holding concerns over technological availability and expense, approval standards and, increasingly, the timescale for fitting treatment systems. These concerns have meant that nine years after it was formalised, the BWMC is still 6% off the 35% of world tonnage ratification mark. Originally, ships would have been required to have treatment technology on board from as early as the start of 2014 (for ballast capacities between 1,500 and 5,000 cubic metres) or 2016 (for larger or smaller vessels), or from the moment of entry into force, whichever was later. With entry into force not happening until a year after ratification, and that taking a very long time to achieve, owners have been faced with the prospect of a likely maximum 12-month window in which to choose and fit a suitable treatment system, with most of the rest of the world fleet – save for the portion of recent newbuilds with BWTS fitted already – doing the same at the same time. That, thankfully, is no longer the case. Last year’s joint industry proposal led by Intertanko that instead would require ships to fit BWTS at their next renewal survey after entry into force has been adopted by the MEPC and should be rubberstamped by the main IMO assembly when it meets in November. In addition, there will be a trial period for port state control to determine which sampling and testing procedures work best in practice and for owners to identify any operational problems with type-approved systems they’ve fitted. Type approval certificates have also been revised to make them more transparent and to give clearer guidance on the operating characteristics of individual systems. Intertanko’s senior manager for the environment Tim Wilkins said: “This was crucial for the industry as the amendment provides a more logical foundation for
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entry into force, ie pinning the date to the entry into force of the convention. As such, it also provides a strong incentive for states to ratify and bring into force the convention. Intertanko had highlighted the need for better information about the treatment systems and, in particular, their operational limitations, at MEPC 64. The changes adopted will hopefully see greater transparency of the systems being approved and their adequacy to be installed on board certain ship types and sizes.” Tom Mackey, senior consultant at BWTS manufacturer Hyde Marine, concurred. “As a delegate to the IMO MEPC and BLG Meetings since 2010, I understand the many potential problems with the convention and its implementation as expressed by shipowners and operators and by their representative organisations,” he said. “I appreciate these genuine concerns about the performance of type approved equipment, about unrealistic implementation dates and about obtaining suitable and reliable equipment and installing it in time to meet the convention requirements, particularly for existing vessels. The delay in full ratification of the convention necessitated a change in the installation schedule.” The US standard for ballast water treatment is tighter than the IMO, but has been hampered by a lack of certified test organisations. Individual state requirements can and do go further: California, where standards are the strictest in the world, has had to delay implementation because none of the 75 treatment systems the state’s Lands Commission reviewed were definitely capable of meeting them right now. Hiccups like that aside, owners trading with the US still need to install BWTS and with a third of the world fleet trading to the US, even without the BWMC this is reason enough for many to fit systems. Wilkins said that the US requirements had “provided some degree of certainty to the industry, even if they do not exactly mirror the IMO requirements in date terms”. Mackey agreed, noting that with hundreds of installations of all types already sold by Hyde and other IMO/USCG-approved manufacturers, both for newbuilds and retrofits, both owners and suppliers were already building up experience with the equipment which would enable performance and reliability improvements in the future. “Many established and experienced marine engineering consultants, shipyards and installation contractors worldwide have already provided their services for
BWM system installations,” he said. “It does appear that the maritime community is prepared and will be able to handle the installation workload.” He also dismissed worries that a delay in required installation dates would see orders drop sharply. “There could be a slight lag in the anticipated large uptick of orders due to the delay of ratification. However, BWTS requests from early adopters, newbuilds, US trading vessels and those who do not want to wait in line closer to a deadline date have kept BWTS suppliers busy. Between IMO and USCG AMS approved systems, there is no shortage in the number of reputable suppliers available to support the demand.” Wilkins, too, is optimistic about the future of the BWMC and its chances of speedier ratification now that some of its major kinks have been ironed out. “I’m confident that the changes will actually support ratification as those countries that wish for the convention to come into force soon will have an added incentive now that the implementation schedule has a link to the entry into force date,” he said.
Those countries that wish for the convention to come into force soon will have an added incentive
BIMCO’s Jeppe S Juhl is more cautious though. “There are still a number of IMO guidelines under the BWMC that need to be finalised and not all states are keen on putting their signature on a convention without having the full picture of the associated guidelines,” he said. “It should also be noted that many IMO member states seems to agree that the BWMC is in need of a major revision and such work cannot be utilised after the entry into force of the convention. We still need ratification by some of the major flag states as soon as possible after the IMO assembly in November 2013 before a possible revision and associated amendments to the convention could be adopted and implemented before the major application dates in 2016!” “Unfortunately [more states could introduce their own requirements] if IMO fails to agree on the draft Resolution at the Assembly in November 2013. It is evident that if the ratification process is stopped then a number of both national and regional initiatives surely will be seen popping up.”
Hyde Marine says that even with a smoother time requirement for installation, order levels for BWTS should hold well
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Engine room
Running on gas As controls on sulphur emissions get ever-tighter, owners are increasingly looking at LNG as a viable fuel for newbuildings. Green Shipping examines the issues With tighter controls on sulphur emissions and more ECAs likely to be established, owners are increasingly being tempted by LNG as a fuel for newbuildings, especially as the bunkering infrastructure to support it comes on stream. One of the biggest manufacturers of dualfuel engines is Germany’s MAN B&W, and its new line of ME-GI longstoke gas injection engines has already begun winning customers. USbased TOTE ordered a pair of 3,100 teu box ships powered by the ME-GI in December last year, vessels that will run primarily on LNG as much of their trade will take place inside the Caribbean and North American ECAs. Meanwhile, late in 2012 Teekay Corporation ordered two LNG carriers from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, taking up the option for two more at the end of July this year, all powered by two ME-GI engines each. For gas carriers, of course, the option is an obvious one. The International Gas Carrier Code allows natural boil-off gas to be stored, burned, reliquefied or used as fuel. For everyone else, it’s an attractive way of eliminating SOx emissions and heavily reducing CO2. MAN B&W’s senior vice president Ole Groene is bullish about the engine’s prospects in the market. “ME-GI engines (and other types of gas engines) are ready for the market and we and our licensees are ready to receive orders for them,” he told Green Shipping. “Gas is a convenient eco-fuel in that there is no sulphur in it, hence only pilot oil sulphur needs to be considered. In addition the ME-GI engine, unlike other gas engines, has a negligible methane slip, that is, practically no greenhouse gas effect on the environment.”
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There are well-known issues with LNG as a fuel, principally that the demand for it has arisen far more rapidly than the bunkering infrastructure needed to support it, something Groene acknowledges. “The logistics, both globally and locally, for gas need to be developed,” he said. “There are presently no gas bunkering stations, but they are being planned, both in the US for Jones Act Shipping, and also world wide for other shipping.” “For LNG carriers ME-GI engines are the obvious choice, because they carry their own fuel on board already. However for other types of ships the needed on board gas tanks are big and expensive, and it is important to realise that this is irrespective of which gas engine technology is being used. The ME-GI has a small advantage in that it uses less gas and thereby can do with smaller tanks.” Those aren’t the design’s only likely advantages, though. Teekay’s technical director Tony Bingham told Green Shipping: “When we set out to re-assess the propulsion for our LNG order we were seeking to an engine that could run on all the currently available fuels and the MEGI engine is certainly capable of this. It is also capable of being run on methanol, DME and other fuels according to MAN. The MEGI is an evolution of the ME and MC series engine currently used by the majority of the world fleet – the only difference is that it has been set up to run on gas by an injection system. Teekay runs 70 engines of the ME type and 22 engines of the MC type in its fleet, so for Teekay the engine has proven itself and is well known to the seafarers on our vessels and also the world fleet. The only new bit that the seafarer has to learn is the gas injection fuel supply system.” Teekay’s chosen design also allows for other benefits from the engine arrangement. Being able to pipe high pressure boil-off gas to the engine means that only a small 250kW reliquefaction plant with minimal moving parts is needed for boil off at low speeds, compared to the average 3.5MW plants used on traditional diesel electric-powered (DFDE) vessels. The engines are considerably more efficient than their DFDE counterparts as the drive train is much less complex and this results in considerably less power lost during transmission from one stage to the next; where a DFDE engine will typically see 11% less power delivered to the propellor than generated at the engine itself, the ME-GI sees only a 1% drop. Even when running on fuel oil, the ME-GI consumes 163g/kWh compared to
189g/kWh for a DFDE engine, equivalent to around 30 tonnes of gas per day at 19.5kts. Teekay’s new gas carriers far exceed the EEDI requirements even for newbuildings in 2025. So the maths seem to make the ME-GI, and engines of its ilk, something of a no-brainer where vessels can make use of gas. But given the availability and quantity of supply, and the fact that it’s only newbuildings really capable of switching engines, how soon will this type of powerplant become commonplace? “We believe the transition all boils down to regulation and relative pricing of combustibles,” Groene said. “All concerns as to systems, installation, engine technology, performace and safety have been erased by testing, demonstrations, HAZIDS and HAZOPs and class approvals.” “A very big part of marine bunkers, some say some 40%, is used now by coastal shipping and this is where the SOx ECAs will first become effective. Coastal shipping is served mostly by smaller ships and such vessels may therefore be first in line to use gas engines, while ocean going tonnage, other than LNG carriers, may come later.” “It will all be influenced by the prevailing SOx limits, and how long time each individual vessel is expected to stay in a controlled area, not least when such become tighter and more geographically widespread. Then we may see a fast change to gas engines in a wider market. In the course of the next 10 years we may see possibly some 25% of all new ships being gas-fuelled.”
MAN has been marketing its ME-GI engine heavily since launch, holding demonstrations for potential buyers in Asia
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Company profile
Dual Fuel Combustion in new Dimensions Flexible firing solution by SAACKE Marine Systems for M/S Viking Grace – the first time LNG fuel has been used for a passenger ship of this size
With a length of 214 meters and room for 2,800 people and 500 vehicles, the passenger ferry M/S Viking Grace travels its route between Turku in Finland and Stockholm every day since January 2013. The special feature: the newly constructed ship combines passenger comfort with a dual fuel concept that operates with heavy oil as well as marine diesel oil, marine gas oil and, most significantly, with natural gas. This is a world first for a ship of this size. The German company SAACKE delivered the individually designed and flexible combustion system for firing gaseous and liquid fuels based on rotary cup atomizer technology. The Viking Grace, manufactured for the Finnish ship owning company Viking Line at the STX shipyard in Turku, benefits from both fuel flexibility as well as reduced emissions. This improvement in energy efficiency is particularly important, given the existing and soon-to-be tightened provisions relating to the Emission Control Areas (ECA) at sea: Starting 2015, fuel will be subject to limit values of 0.1 percent sulfur on the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
World’s first dual fuel boiler plant on a passenger ship of this size
SAACKE GmbH impressed with its dual fuel solution consisting of two FMB-VM boiler plants, each with a SKVG 50 burner, electrical control equipment, fuel supply modules for gas and oil and four exhaust gas boilers for heat recovery. The SAACKE FMB-VM is a steam boiler designed in line with the water-tube boiler principle and which is specifically intended for the shipping industry. The SKVG rotary cup atomizer is a duoblock burner with separate fan and is distinguished by its fuel and installation flexibility. The clean combustion of gaseous fuel reduces emissions and maintenance expenses for the boiler as well as the exhaust gas boiler. Compliance with existing and planned emission regulations was an important aspect for the customer. That is why the emissions from gas operation are already well under the future IMO limits, more precisely at 0.2 g/kWh NOx and 0.02 Vol.% SOx. Furthermore Viking Line is
The M/S Viking Grace was built at the STX shipyard in Turku, Finland
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more independent from the price developments of individual fuels thanks to the alternative operation with HFO, MDO, MGO and LNG. A treatment of the exhaust gases is not necessary, soot is not an issue. Due to the low gas pressures needed on the burner, the combustion system enables an improved reliability.
Successful start of the ferry traffic
Due to its innovative character and the dimensions of the ship, this project posed a great challenge for everyone involved. SAACKE managed the entire process chain, from project planning and engineering through to manufacturing and commissioning and is also responsible for after sales service. This involved a number of different departments and locations from the international corporate network – from Germany, Croatia, Sweden and the Netherlands. “The Viking Grace proves that natural gas can be used as marine fuel on a daily basis. We are proud that we were able to contribute to this innovation with our customized dual fuel boiler plant”, says Dr. Katharina Boeck, Project Manager at SAACKE Marine Systems. Also Viking Line shows satisfied with the successful project at the beginning of the ferry traffic: The number of passengers attracted by M/S Viking Grace on the Turku – Stockholm route increased by 58.6 per cent compared with the same period last year. Nearly 330,000 passengers travelled with the ferry during the first three months.
International solutions from a single source
SAACKE has been developing industrial combustion plants for over 80 years and is now one of the world’s leading companies in this field. For many decades they use their process knowhow with a specific focus on marine boilers and gas burners also. International system solutions from a single source, internally developed core components and customized products – a complete package, which also convinced the customer Viking Line. SAACKE GmbH was founded in 1931 as CSÖ Carl SAACKE Ölfeuerungsgesellschaft mbH. The company introduced its first burner for marine use to the market in 1934. Now SAACKE is one of the leading specialists for combustion engineering
Company profile
and complete plant systems. Annual sales were in 2011 around EUR 184 million. The company employs about 1,100 staff worldwide, including 300 engineers. The head office in Bremen is home to both the production facilities and the development center. With international production sites and a global service and distribution network, SAACKE is represented in all continents. In 2002, SAACKE launched an innovation to safeguard liquefied gas transport ships in the form of the gas combustion unit. The company has been the market leader in this segment since then. SAACKE has been providing complete heating systems with control units for ferries, container ships, cruise ships and for the FPSO and LNG carrier industries. Today, there are more than 6,000 SAACKE combustion plants in use on ships, among them the “Queen Mary 2”. Key technical data Boiler type: 2 x FMB-VM Steam generation: 7 t/h saturated steam per boiler / 7 bar Design pressure: 10 bar Burner type: 1 x SKVG 50 per boiler Burner capacity: 5.9 MW per boiler Burner control range: 1:6 Fuel: Heavy fuel oil (HFO), marine diesel oil (MDO), marine gas oil (MGO), natural gas (LNG) Emissions from gas operation: At 0.2 g/kWh NOx and 0.02 Vol.-% SOx it is already well under the future IMO limits Exhaust gas boiler: 4 x EME-VFT Steam generation: 2.05 t/h saturated steam per boiler / 7 bar Design pressure: 11 bar The M/S Viking Grace Delivery: 2013 Length / width: 214 m / 31.8 m Speed: max. 23.2 knots Capacity: 880 cabins for 2,800 passengers Lane meters: 1,275 m for about 500 passenger cars Gross tonnage: 57,000 gt Route: Turku – Mariehamn/Långnäs – Stockholm Classification: Lloyds Register Flag country: Finland
SAACKE GmbH Suedweststraße 13 28237 Bremen Germany info@saacke.com www.saacke.com
Since January 2013 the passenger ferry M/S Viking Grace travels its route between Turku in Finland and Stockholm in Sweden every day
Behind the scenes: The SAACKE combustion system under deck of the M/S Viking Grace
The SAACKE SKVG burners are manufactured at the SAACKE main site in Bremen, Germany
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Emissions
Scrubbing up nicely? Shipowners remain wary of installing scrubbers, but they could be basing their views on historical data that is no longer relevant
New BIMCO president John Denholm used his inauguration at the end of May to attack the “environmental siege” on shipping, in particular the sulphur cap. Owners would “be forced to burn low sulphur fuel or LNG, in the absence of some spectacular advance in exhaust scrubbing technology”, he said, and assured his listeners that the organisation would press for delays in implementing the limits. A few days later, ICS chairman Masamichi Morooka told Nor-Shipping that environmental regulation could cost the industry US$50bn per year through to 2015, citing ballast water treatment systems, the UNFCCC Green Climate Fund and, in particular, the cost of switching to low sulphur fuel. With these concerns, both men echoed sentiments expressed earlier in the year by the UK Chamber of Shipping when it released a widely-covered report on the costs of the cap. It commissioned the study on behalf of several North Sea and Channel ship operators from consultants AMEC. It concluded, among other things, that more cargo would travel by road, scrubbers were “not yet sufficiently proven for shipowners to fit them with confidence”, LNG was feasible for newbuildings only, and that distillate use would mean fuel costs 50% higher per tonne. But do these reflect genuine concerns or simply the entrenched attitudes that some elements of the industry have to SOx reduction in general and exhaust gas scrubber technology in particular? The findings on fuel costs are hard to argue. Many owners are looking at switching already and manufacturers are in on the act, with automated fuel blending systems like Insatech’s S3 Smart Sulphur Switch, which can adjust fuel use between HFO and diesel, as well as preset blends, automatically on entering an ECA, hitting the market
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this year. Its stance on LNG retrofitting is probably accurate, despite this year seeing the first such order for an existing ferry in Germany. On scrubbers, though, there are clear flaws with the conclusions drawn based on the data employed. These flaws cast suspicions of shooting for a preset opinion. At the time of release, the Chamber’s director of safety and environment David Balston said: “We fully support the need to reduce sulphur emissions from ships, but we are particularly concerned that many routes will become non viable and for those vessels operating on them we seek transitional arrangements, including very tight time-limited exemptions to allow technology to catch up and provide a realistic alternative.” The Chamber, like BIMCO, has yet to detail those arrangements or the exemptions sought, but denied that its opposition was with a view to the wider limits due from 2020. “Our prime concern is for the 2015 regulations and trying to seek agreement from regulators that transitional arrangements are needed for the very small number (in relation to the total) of vessels operating almost exclusively in ECAs that will be forced into fuel switching as their only option and as a result will become non viable due to modal shift,” David Balston told Green Shipping. “Our point is that, at present, few shipowners have confidence that the technology is reliable enough today to provide regulatory certainty and are therefore reluctant to make the very substantial investment that would be required.” So where do the problems with this stated view of scrubbers lie? The answer comes in the data AMEC employed and that the Chamber trumpeted and here the report is wanting. AMEC spoke to only five ship operators. Just two had installed scrubber systems. P&O Ferries had a full-scale wet scrubber installed on the four main engines and auxilliaries of the Pride of Kent in 2003. The main engine scrubbers were ineffective and deactivated, while the auxilliaries achieved only 55% efficiency and were decommissioned two years later. This was followed by a test bed installation on one auxilliary engine in 2005. This lasted 35,000 hours over seven years and managed to meet standards, but there were issues with reliability and continuous operation. Only the second installation, on the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam, employed even remotely up to date machinery, a full-scale system installed in 2009.
HAL reported two minor fires during docking caused by pipe coverings, but was “confident that these lessons have been learned and these problems will not re-occur”. The report goes on: “A number of developments had been demonstrated by this second operator, notably the use of continuous monitoring of emissions at the funnel and the standards for sludge handling and washwater criteria which had later been agreed at IMO. It was acknowledged that the lessons learned had been incorporated into the latest generation of scrubbers and this operator welcomed the development of multiengine scrubbers, as an option which may be of benefit for multi-engine vessels.” Hardly a sentiment you would expect to find given the Chamber’s statements dismissing the technology, nor John Denholm’s suggestion that it needed a “spectacular advance”, but one that would echo those arising from far more recent, and more widespread, orders for modern scrubber technology lacking the issues of early units eight to 10 years ago. Sigurd Jenssen from Finland’s Wärtsilä group told Green Shipping: “With the 2015 cap coming closer we are seeing a change in the interest levels and in the
More and more owners are becoming conscious that they will need to have a plan for addressing the fuel sulphur cap and that it will take some time to implement
maturity of discussions [with owners]. More and more are becoming conscious that they will need to have a plan for addressing the fuel sulphur cap and that it will take some time to prepare and implement such a plan.” He seemed bemused with the idea that the technology was unproven, since land-based systems have been in use since the 1930s and (albeit very different from today’s) marine ones in the form of inert gas systems have been operating since the 1960s. “I cannot speak for the installations referenced in the study by AMEC, as they were supplied by other companies,” he said. “But from our perspective we have seen that some of the early installations, being primarily demonstration projects, suffered from a lack of redundancy and required more user intervention than you would have on a commercial installation. These pilot installations have provided useful insights and helped us in developing systems that today have the required redundancy and automation levels.” “The AMEC study drew largely on data from past studies from 2009 and 2010,” he concluded tactfully. “We believe it would have been beneficial to look at more recent data.”
Color Line’s SuperSpeed 2 is just one of many ships booked in for scrubber fittings as the ECA cap approaches
© Wärtsilä
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Coatings
Film star An adhesive foil-backed film, Thorn-D is an innovative entrant to the world of anti-fouling systems that is gathering a host of fans
The Port of Amsterdam launched a pilot programme in March this year to test out Thorn-D, an unusual type of anti-fouling film, on one of its harbour work boats. The relatively high-profile move for the new anti-fouling followed its first string of workboat orders and has since been followed by orders from Mubarak Marine in Dubai, Acta Marine in the Netherlands and the Port of LA. Manufacturer Micanti is hoping that larger commercial orders for Thorn-D will follow as it proves its effectiveness. Conventional anti-foulings generally rely on biocidal or smoothness to prevent organisms remaining attached as vessels move through the water and while there have been changes in biocide chemistry over the years, coatings technology largely remains fairly standardised. More unusual solutions (see our Innovation section for an example) are mostly concept designs rather than commercial offerings. Thorn-D, however, is both unusual and available. It consists of microfibres of a stiffness, length and density designed to prevent fouling growth regardless of whether the vessel they’re on is moving or stationary and regardless of water salinity or conditions. The film was first marketed by Micanti on static objects like fish farm nets, where continuous fish feeding makes for an attractive environment for organisms like barnacles and mussels. Its first installation in Turkey in 2007 remains, the company says, still in use without problems and has not needed cleaning in that time. The company still markets it for use on offshore structures and port infrastructure, such as lock gates. After moving beyond stationary objects to pleasure craft, the main challenge the company has faced has been to convince the maritime industry that Thorn-D doesn’t increase drag. The coating has been tested extensively at speeds of up to 30 knots at institutes like MARIN and TNO, as well as on actual installations.
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Under the pilot scheme, one of Amsterdam’s work boats will use the adhesive foil-backed film while another has been given a fresh coat of conventional antifouling. Willem Spoelstra of the Port of Amsterdam’s Nautical Division said: “The pilot will run for a year and we’ve agreed with Micanti that the film has to remain problem-free for at least two years. They’ve given us certain guarantees concerning durability and so on, in any event. We can now assume that the film will not come off. The great thing about this test is that the two vessels will be operating in precisely the same area. That’s ideal for a pilot project.” “The basic thought behind Thorn-D is that a combination of prickliness and swaying of Thorn-D fibers makes the surface unattractive for organisms,” said Dr Rick Breuer, founder of Micanti and developer of the film. “Multiple tests under various circumstances and in different locations around the world have been done and Thorn-D has proven to be effective every time.” Micanti co-owner and commercial director Eric Pieters told Green Shipping: “We believe we have found an answer to a lot of anti-fouling issues. It is important to understand that Thorn-D is a physical barrier instead of a regular anti-fouling, which is based on leaching chemicals in the water. This leaching will stop gradually and therefore the performance of a conventional antifouling decreases in time. We guarantee a lifetime of at least five years as our product is not based on leaching.” While the company has only relatively recently moved into the anti-fouling market for smaller commercial vessels, Micanti aims to broaden its client base on to larger cargo ships and insists that there is no reason that Thorn-D as it stands can’t and won’t be used on any vessel. “[The range of applications] are endless,” Pieters said. “We will gradually move forward to apply Thorn-D on larger vessels like cargo vessels in the very near future. We expect to have applied it on a cargo vessel before the end of this year. In principle, there is no upper size limit nor is a change in the method of application foreseen in the near future. “The market for us is as big as the shipping and offshore structures market themselves. In other words, in all areas where anti-fouling is needed, Thorn-D can be applied.”
Pieters’ confidence is based on the microfibres’ apparent minimal performance variance in different water or operating conditions, temperature, salinity and so on. “Thorn-D has been tested worldwide and under different circumstances,” he said. “We have seen no need to adapt the product according to results we have achieved.” “The biggest strength of Thorn-D is the fact that it is a physical barrier rather than based on leaching chemicals in the water. This guarantees the performance while moored or sailing. Thorn-D is environmental friendly as well,” he said. Pieters denied that greater environmental regulation and pressure on owners would be a key driver for customers, though. “We do see an advantage of tighter environmental controls but we have a piece of the market because of it’s performance not because of legislation.” Thorn-D is a relative newcomer to the commercial maritime sector and it will be interesting to see if the different technical approach to the fouling problem it presents will gain serious traction in a market dominated by copper biocides and ‘non-stick’ foul release coatings. Micanti seems happy with the product as it stands, but Pieters says the company will continue to monitor developments and adapt as needed. “Obviously the product developments within foils are numerous,” he said, “and we certainly anticipate to make our foil as ‘intelligent’ as possible.” If Thorn-D can make the jump from smaller work boat and tug applications and on to larger trading vessels, it would mark a rare new entry in viable approaches to fouling control.
We believe we have found an answer to a lot of anti-fouling issues. It is important to understand that Thorn-D is a physical barrier instead of a regular anti-fouling, which is based on leaching chemicals in the water
Micanti’s Rik Breur and Eric Pieters are hoping for a bright future for their innovative anti-fouling system
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Efficency
Mandatory monitoring The European Commission has laid out its plans for mandatory CO2 emissions monitoring in the maritime industry, with all ships over 5,000gt calling at or departing from EU ports required to monitor and report on shipboard CO2 generation from the start of 2018 The European Commission’s move into mandatory CO2 emmissions monitoring comes with discussions at the IMO held up by debate over market-based mechanisms for encouraging emissions reduction. The EU proposals don’t currently feature an MBM, but the Commission is aiming to introduce one “in the medium-to-long-term”. Commission Vice-President for mobility and transport Siim Kallas said: “We recognise that shipping must contribute to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, preferably through global measures that are the most environmentally effective and make economic sense. For a global sector such as maritime transport, this can best be achieved through the International Maritime Organization. On the basis of today’s policy outline, the EU will continue its efforts, jointly with its global partners, to achieve a comprehensive international solution. Today’s proposal is a significant contribution to IMO efforts to cut fuel use and increase the fuel efficiency of ships with a range of instruments including technical and market-based measures.” The EC predicts that its proposals will see a cut in per-journey emissions of up to 2% and a net cost reduction to owners of €100m per year. Shipowners will have to monitor and report the verified amount of CO2 emitted by their vessels on voyages to, from and between EU ports regardless of flag, as well as being required to provide certain other information, such as distance travelled, cargo carried and time spent at sea, to determine the ships’ average energy efficiency. A document of compliance issued by an independent verifier will have to be carried on board ships and will be subject to port state inspection. Tanker owners’ group Intertanko, which is conducting its own study
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collecting and analysing members’ data to determine the best definition of a ship’s efficiency, is reviewing the proposed regulation. Technical director Dragos Rauta told Green Shipping: “The MRV concept is supported by Intertanko as it is aimed to be a transparent monitoring and reporting of fuel consumption/ CO2 emissions of ships in operations. The verification process should also be very well defined. We are in the process of reviewing the proposed regulation. It appears the proposal is limited to mandate monitoring and reporting of fuel consumption and some specific ships’ voyage data. It also attempts to define the verification process. We believe there is room for improvements on parts of the proposal, which we may suggest to the EU.” Owners will be able to choose between the four main different monitoring methods – bunker delivery notes, tank soundings, fuel flow measuring and stack emissions monitoring – with the Commission choosing not to push one over the others. While the retention of choice may prove popular with some owners – BDNs, in particular, are the favourite of the European Community Shipowners’ Association – it may be less so elsewhere. A study by CE Delft published in April this year evaluated all four techniques for accuracy, verifiability, cost of installation, cost of operation, additional data such as non-CO2 emission levels and the usability of that data for owners and charterers alike. BDNs cost nothing, but Delft found fault with their verifiability, especially after time in storage, and reliability, and with the fact that, since a ship may go several voyages between bunkering, BDNs offer no means to determine route-based efficiency savings. In addition, because BDNs are already retained by owners, Delft thought that, as with tank soundings, it was unlikely that their use as a measure of emissions would lead to further reductions by themselves. “It is very unlikely that the fuel consumption established by the BDNs constitutes a new insight [for owners] because fuel consumption is already regularly monitored and reported within the company,” the report says. Furthermore, even if consumption seemed unusually high and the owner could profit from reductions it goes on, “one can expect the shipowner to already have taken those operational and technical measures that are widely acknowledged and proven to be efficient for the vessel under consideration.”
Fuel flow measurement was the technique to come out best in the study, balancing much greater accuracy against a cost much lower than stack measurements, US$15-60,000 for equipment that many modern ships already have. In addition, if coupled with GPS logs, flow metering could allow route-based efficiency savings. “Systems that are already commonly used within companies are unlikely to provide additional incentives to reduce emissions,” the report says. “Hence, it is unlikely that BDNs or tank monitoring provide an additional incentive for emissions reductions within a company.” The European authorities don’t seem to share this view. Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action, said: “We are charting a clear course towards reducing maritime greenhouse gas emissions. The EU monitoring system will bring environmental and economic gains for the shipping sector by increasing transparency about emissions and creating an incentive for shipowners to cut them.” Industry association the Global Shippers’ Forum has been the first to come out in favour of the scheme. GSF secretary general Chris Welsh said: “Achieving global agreement on precisely how to tackle climate change within the maritime sector
has been slow paced and fraught with difficulty. Shippers are increasingly demanding verifiable greenhouse gas data from ocean carriers so that they in turn can accurately benchmark the carbon footprint of their supply chains. We hope the Commission’s initiative will push the International Maritime Organisation to promptly accomplish what it set out to achieve - a global agreement on reducing GHG emissions in the global maritime industry.” “The global shipping industry needs a predictable and uniform set of global regulations to reduce GHG emissions,” Welsh said. “The IMO needs to make urgent progress in achieving a global solution to the maritime emissions problem. The MRV, although European based, could provide much needed direction by providing a workable framework.” The proposed MRV scheme still needs to be passed by the European Parliament and Council before it becomes law. It is likely that the EU will also submit its proposals to the IMO, which will impact discussions on global monitoring. What shape any eventual MBM might take is yet to be seen, and we can expect to see considerable lobbying on behalf of the industry if it seems that whatever system is proposed would prove unacceptable to the sector.
We are charting a clear course towards reducing maritime ghg emissions
Every port call in the EU will mean logging CO2 emissions under the new plans
© HHM/Dietmar Hasenpusch
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Corporate Profile
Responsible recycling of ships For at least the last fifteen years, ship recycling yards in Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan and Turkey have been recycling 97% to 98% of all the tonnage that is recycled in the world. The economies of these countries are characterised by a great appetite for scrap steel for their steel making needs. Of the five, the three South Asian countries recycle two thirds of the world’s recycled tonnage and are the most competitive in the industry in terms of the prices they pay for buying end-of-life ships. Also, these three countries are less developed and poorer when compared to the other recycling destinations. As poverty is usually linked to lower safety, social welfare and environmental standards, the question arises on whether it is inconsistent for a socially responsible shipowner to recycle ships in South Asia. In the last 20 years, the conditions under which ships are recycled have come under a spotlight, mostly as a result of persistent campaigns by civil society activists. This, in turn, has led to efforts to regulate the recycling industry with common international standards intended to create a level playing field and improved safety and environmental protection standards. Around the end of the 1990s, the United Nations Environment Programme decided that the already in force Basel Convention (“The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal”) should also regulate the recycling of ships. However, because the Basel Convention had not been developed with shipping in mind, serious practical and legal difficulties were experienced when attempting to enforce the provisions of this convention to ship recycling. Therefore, in 2004 the governing body of the Basel Convention in its decision VII/26 requested UN’s International Maritime Organization to develop a new convention specific to the recycling of ships. IMO agreed to develop the new convention and in May 2009 it adopted the “Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009”, also known as “the Hong Kong Convention”. The Hong Kong Convention has been opposed and frequently criticised by civil society activists, primarily for not banning the beaching method of ship recycling that is used exclusively in South Asia. Nevertheless, IMO’s intention was not to close down the ship recycling industries in South Asia, nor to exclude them from the scope of the Convention, but instead to produce safety and environmental improvements in recycling yards in the developing world where 70% of the world’s ship recycling takes place. It is expected that within the next 10 years or so, the Hong Kong Convention will not only enter into force, but will also become the recognised and globally implemented standard of the industry. In the meantime, meaningful progress has been taking place as all five recycling countries are working, at their own pace, towards implementing tighter safety and pollution prevention requirements to their recycling industries and in so doing, progressively are satisfying more of the requirements of the Hong Kong Convention. Also, a number of individual recycling yards are investing in improvements in their facilities, equipment and working practices. It is fair to say that the great majority of the shipowners have not yet seen an immediate justification to changing the way they prepare their ships for recycling before the Hong Kong Convention’s entry into force, other than in providing their ships with inventories of hazardous materials in slowly increasing numbers. In isolated cases, NGO activists target shipowners sending ships for recycling to South Asian yards with aggressive negative publicity. Finally, there is a small number of shipowners who, often in line with their company’s policy of Corporate Social
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Responsibility, have changed the way they sell ships for recycling by opting for what has come to be known as “green ship recycling”, or possibly better termed as “responsible recycling”. This, more often than not, has meant selling their end-of-life ships to yards located outside South Asia, generally at lower prices, in order to avoid being associated with substandard recycling and also to avoid bad publicity. And this is the conundrum. As mentioned before, in both India and Bangladesh, there are recycling yards that are already implementing gradual improvements to safety, to environmental protection and to social welfare. The owners of these yards need – and deserve – to be supported by the custom of quality shipowners, so that their businesses can prosper and so that they can become examples to be imitated by the rest of the recycling industry in their country. If these yards are not positively favoured by the socially responsible shipowners, then how will safety, environmental and welfare improvements be fuelled in the countries that need them most? When the Hong Kong Convention enters into force, shipowners will have no difficulty in identifying yards that are compliant with the Convention’s standards. In the meantime, a socially responsible shipowner needs to differentiate between yards that are suitable and yards that are unacceptable. However, this is not a task many shipowners are familiar with, as shipowners normally sell their end-of-life ships to Cash Buyers who then deal with the recycling industry and its complexities. GMS as the largest Cash Buyer, responsible for around 30% of all ship recycling transactions, has unparalleled expertise and knowledge of the ship recycling industry, and has developed a “green ship recycling program” that tailors the contracting, preparation, and actual recycling to the specific requirements of shipowners who might want to ensure that their vessels are recycled to specified safety and environmental standards. For example, a shipowner may wish to follow the standards of the Hong Kong Convention, or those by the European Union, or simply tailor a recycling process based on his in-house standards. Here, GMS can assist with advice, with the development of the Inventory of Hazardous Materials, the vetting of yards, and the development of a ship recycling plan. Through well-established relationships with responsible recycling yards worldwide, GMS can select with the owner the right yard with the right certification (ISO 9001, 14001, 3000 & OHSAS 18001). Depending on the owner’s requirements, GMS is also able to monitor the recycling process and provide a report on the recycling of the specific vessel. If required, such a program can include supervision by a leading classification society to monitor the process, to raise recommendations, to certify the ship recycling plan, and to report to the owner. This way, GMS is beginning to apply the technical standards of the HKC well before the Convention’s entry into force, and, most importantly, is encouraging individual recyclers to implement improvements and to market their recycling yards through these improvements. Dr Nikos Mikelis Non Executive Director, Green Ship Recycling Program
Recycling
Testing times for European recycling This year has seen a merry dance around European ship recycling rules, condemnation at different stages from all sides and an end result that many see as a watered-down exercise in bureaucracy likely to have little real impact at all. And there’s probably time for at least one encore before owners, yards and pressure groups can know for sure where they stand
When the initial proposals came to the EU’s environment committee back in March, beaching of EU-flagged vessels was going to be banned, a fixed fee would be levied on calls to EU ports (with owners given an alternative of a flat annual charge) and the income would go to enable European-approved recycling facilities to compete on price with those elsewhere with cheaper labour and safety costs. There would also be fast-track ratification by the EU’s member states of the Hong Kong Convention (HKC), which still has yet to reach the entry into force mark four years after its introduction. And just before all this was being debated, the first twist in the tail surfaced. In February, the Guardian newspaper reported on leaked advice from the European Council’s legal services arm suggesting that the regulations might not be legal at all since they exempt vessels from the Union’s existing Basel Convention-based waste export rules. They eventually passed the committee after lengthy debate on the advice given. While campaigners questioned the legality of the exemption, they generally praised the proposed levy. The industry, however, at best had mixed opinions of it and at worst was fiercely critical. The levy was intended to tackle the problem of owners reflagging vessels before selling them for recycling, neatly circumventing existing European rules, not to mention the new ban on beaching and recycling outside the OECD. While reflagging would not be prevented, the income raised from
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the levy would be used to subsidise clean recycling facilities in the OECD and allow them to compete on price with beach operations in Asia. Unfortunately for its supporters, and to the delight of the industry, the levy was scrapped when it came to the European Parliament. MEPs voted to kick the problem back to the Commission to submit a new legislative proposal for a financial mechanism in 2015. Aside from an additional proposal to bring the regulations in line with Basel Convention requirements on waste traceability and liability, blocked by some of the main European flag states including Greece, Malta and Cyprus, the rest of the proposals passed unhindered in June, placing major restrictions, aside from the carrying of hazardous materials manifests, only on EU-flagged vessels. Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik even acknowledged that they did nothing to prevent or discourage reflagging in his statement welcoming the new regulation. Jeremy Wates, head of the European Environmental Bureau, said: “We fear that the Regulation will end up applying to very few ships. Unless an economic incentive for all ships calling at EU ports is rapidly introduced, circumvention of the law will persist and the European shipping industry will continue to be at the heart of scandals involving severe pollution of coastal zones and exploitation of vulnerable workers in developing countries.” “We are concerned that the shortcomings of the Regulation will make it ineffective, and worse still, that the EU could be setting a dangerous precedent for other industries that want to avoid being held accountable to international environmental laws,” said Patrizia Heidegger, director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform. “Not only do the EU institutions create a legal dilemma for themselves, but also for all of the 27 European Member States that are Parties to the Basel Convention. All will have to reconcile the illegality of unilaterally acting in non-compliance with their international obligations.” So shipping in EU waters could yet face a fresh attempt to incentivise cleaner recycling in two years’ time if, that is, the regulation itself hasn’t been challenged in the European courts by those who say that circumventing Basel commitments is unlawful. The legal advice given to the European Council matched earlier opinions commissioned by the NGO Shipbreaking Platform from the Center for International Environmental Law and former European Commission chief counsel Ludwig Kramer.
It’s not inconceivable that a challenge could succeed. If that’s the case, European owners could face financial commitments and legal restrictions forcing them to sell ships for recycling only within the OECD, something that many doubt is feasible.
The campaigner’s view Patrizia Heidegger, executive director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, told Green Shipping: “Of course it’s very important that the legal opinion reflects the ones we commissioned. As far as we know from discussions within the Council and committee it’s been taken very seriously and there’s been a lot of discussion, but at the end of the day it’s just an opinion and it’s very hard to predict an outcome.” Both forms of regional regulatory regime are not without issues, something which Heidegger readily accepted. Under Basel, the rules apply to the exporting state – for ships, the state of last voyage – and not to the flag state. This enables easy circumvention of the rules by making one final voyage, whether laden or not, to a non-EU state before being sold for scrap, something which owners are well aware of. Similarly, flag-based restrictions like those proposed by the EU can be avoided equally easily by reflagging before sale. “Legislation based on flag state doesn’t work,” Heidegger said. “50% of the trading EU-owned fleet is EU-flagged. That drops to 2% at scrapping time. “A global problem needs a global solution. But it’s good that the EU has decided to think about at least a regional solution with the HKC not likely to come in within
10 years or so. States party to the HKC can always add stricter rules if they want; that’s a clause in the HKC itself. So it shouldn’t affect the HKC at all.” Of course, the convention is some way from being ratified, four years after it was finalised. Not necessarily a long time in IMO convention terms, but long enough that politicians in the environmentally-conscious EU are clearly feeling the pressure to clean up European shipping without waiting for the IMO. The reason for the hold up, according to Heidegger, is that none of the large flag or scrapping states want to be the first to blink. No one wants to make the first move and potentially give their competition an advantage when owners are considering flags for ships reaching the end of their service life. One of the great claims in terms of better ship recycling and the choices available to owners is that there simply isn’t the capacity, whether in Turkey or Mexico, the EU or North America, to handle the volume of ships or the yards capable of dealing with the largest vessels that currently go almost exclusively for beaching. Heidegger doesn’t agree with this argument. “The industry always says there’s not enough capacity for clean and safe recycling anywhere, but we’ve always argued that there’s enough capacity within the OECD – and produced studies showing there’s enough – to recycle all EU-flagged ships,” she said. “And if we want clean and safe recycling, we have to build up this capacity. It’s a very strange argument. “Recycling is a very profitable business, but at the moment it’s very hard for OECD recyclers to get the really big ships. So they can’t invest, not having the market. If they knew they’d have owners sending them tonnage they could invest with confidence and increase their capacity.”
Sending ships to beaches it to be outlawed – for EU-flag vessels anyway – but other measures failed to pass ©: NGO Shipbreaking Platform 2012
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CTI SERVICE INTRODUCTION AND QUALIFICATIONS Inventory of Hazardous Materials Service
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The yard’s view Heidegger’s confidence in the capabilities of OECD ship recyclers and hope for changing attitudes in the industry, is shared by Turkey’s largest recycling yard LEYAL. Turkey is the only OECD member with a strong ship recycling industry, with yards in Aliaga on its Aegean coast feeding a booming steel business. LEYAL has a nominal capacity of 100,000 tonnes of steel per year and as well as a history of dismantling European naval vessels, including two of the UK’s aircraft carriers, is the only Turkish yard to have handled the break up of an FPSO, a former 150,000 dwt suezmax. LEYAL told Green Shipping that owners were becoming more receptive to the importance of cleaner recycling even without regulations in force. “Shipowners are becoming significantly more aware of the danger irresponsible ship recycling poses, both to human health and safety and to the environment,” a company spokesman said. “They are starting to appreciate the differences among the various countries where ship recycling predominantly takes place and are starting to ask questions regarding the procedures and operations of the specific recycling facilities they are negotiating with.” “With the adoption of the Hong Kong Convention and the issuance of the accompanying guidelines, shipowners have a wealth of information to draw from regarding what they should and should not do in relation to recycling their vessel, both at their end as well as at the recycling facility’s end,” the spokesman said. “However, the determining factor in the majority of the owners’ decisions is still price, price, price.” It was of course precisely this drive for the best price and the difficulty that better yards can have paying that price when their other overheads are much higher, that the EU’s proposed recycling levy aimed to meet. But LEYAL, like the other Aliaga yards, has been helped in recent times by both the shipping industry’s financial troubles and problems of overcapacity, and the booming Turkish steel industry. “Ship recycling and shipping freight markets work in the opposite way – when one the one is doing well the other is not,” the spokesman said. “In this respect, since 2009 our sector has boomed with huge numbers of vessels
arriving for demolition; 2012 was both a world record year and a Turkish national record year for ship recycling, both in terms of the number of ships and in terms of tonnage. At the same time, the Turkish economy is one of the world’s faster growing economies, with a steel industry ranked eighth in the world in terms of steel production by 2012 figures and ranked 1st in terms of the growth of steel production. Turkish ship recycling is therefore also enjoying a boom on the back end where our product [cut steel scrap]is sold.” LEYAL echoed confidence in the available capacity of the country’s ship recyclers as well as their technical expertise. “Both LEYAL and Turkey have significant capacity allowing, along with other European ship recycling yards, them to safely and successfully recycle European vessels,” the spokesman said. “At present, only European government and Navy vessels follow the European Waste Shipment Regulation and LEYAL has been recycling vessels under this regime since 2004, starting with the recycling of the German Navy destroyer Rommel. It is noteworthy that since 2008, LEYAL has also recycled in excess of 10 British Navy vessels, including two aircraft carriers; this in parallel to recycling a number of other regular commercial vessels of various sizes up to 30,000 lightweight tons.” The company dismissed the impact of competition from China and elsewhere should facilities get the green light from the EU. “Although the proposed European Regulation may be theoretically opening up the way to facilities outside OECD, there is a very strict vetting and authorisation system proposed for any non-OECD yard based on Western standards,” the spokesman said. “Therefore, the explicit approval of non-OECD yards by European authorities will be required and therefore we do not expect that a significant number of non-OECD facilities will immediately become compliant.” “Moreover the reality is that shipowners, despite becoming more aware of the dangers, still choose the resting place for their vessel based on the price offered. Therefore we do not expect the proposed European regulation on ship recycling to have an immediate effect on the ships dismantled in Turkey.” What fate the new rules have and what shape they’ll be in come 2015, remains to be seen. Only time will tell if the failure to impose a levy represents a narrow escape from an unnecessary financial burden, or a missed opportunity for genuine change.
Turkish yards offer the OECD’s prime source of ship recycling capacity, and yards like LEYAL say they’re ready to take extra business © LEYAL
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Yard work
A question of leadership Will the European Commission’s LeaderSHIP 2020 strategy help Europe’s shipping yards out of the economic crisis? Green Shipping investigates
Earlier this year, the European Commission published its LeaderSHIP 2020 shipyard strategy, designed to shore up the EU’s yards in the face of continued competition from Asia. The strategy has since been backed up by Europe’s General Affairs Council in June and the “blue growth” European Parliament resolution in July. The strategy aims to see European yards concentrate on building high technical skills to meet shortages, providing better financing for yards to win more business and to do so in new areas, to invest in research on zero emission and high-efficiency vessels, and to focus on attracting green build and retrofit business. All of this sounds sensible, of course. Europe has managed to retain its grasp on most high-end passenger ship orders, for instance, due to yard experience and specialisation. With exhaust scrubbing, engine replacement and the fitting of ballast water treatment systems to existing vessels all on the cards, it seems fair to expect a relatively bumper crop of both retrofit and quality newbuild work to be in the offing and European yards should be well-placed to benefit. The only potential warning notes come in the details. LeaderSHIP 2020 is a successor strategy to LeaderSHIP 2015, launched in 2003. The fact that the last grand plan for European shipbuilding was launched 10 years before its predecessor – 10 years in which many EU yards have struggled, even before the onset of 2008’s financial collapse, and several folded completely – but has a titular date only five years apart serves as a message: the needs of EU yards have been seen as relatively unimportant in the scheme of things as the economies of Europe teetered on the brink and, until recently, the yards have been left to fend for themselves.
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Which of course it should be, to some extent at least. Green retrofit work is a limited commodity; once regulations such as the BWM Convention eventually enter force, all trading vessels have to meet their requirements within a short timespan. After this, the expected boom in refitting ships will be past. And the longer it takes to come, the more newbuild vessels built to be as future-proof as possible will have replaced ships built without treatment and control gear on board anyway. That said, the strategy and the drive to shore up the maritime industry has been welcomed by European yards. The Ships & Maritime Equipment Association, SEA Europe, said that “through coordinated and integrated policy action with the European Commission and maritime stakeholders the high-tech capabilities, strategic vision and long term viability of the sector can be effectively realised”, citing the emphasis on innovation, green technology and diversification into emerging markets such as offshore wind generation. “The adoption of LeaderSHIP 2020 should not be seen as the final destination of a comprehensive consultation process,” said SEA Europe’s secretary general Douwe Cunningham. “It provides a solid and necessary political basis for the industry to look to the future, enabling the sector to further increase its innovative and competitive edge in specialised market areas which has been one of its core strengths throughout the past decade. Now is the time that we work closely together with the European Commission and the other LeaderSHIP 2020 stakeholders in order to ensure that the recommendations are effectively implemented.” A matching title with a different date on it is not the only thing that LeaderSHIP 2020 shares with its 10-year-old predecessor; many of the policies within it, especially the focus on winning high-tech green business, are exactly the same. There are differences on the financial and market side – a result of the crises of recent years – but the idea that European yards can be saved from rivals elsewhere in the world by offering environmental quality over quantity was a cornerstone of the previous, unsuccessful programme. European yards remain upbeat, though. “With the firm commitment of the member states and the European Commission for this initiative a real momentum
has been created to support the sector politically in these challenging times,” SEA Europe chairman Lars Gørvell-Dahll said at the group’s June AGM. “There are a number of important policy issues that can be stimulated by LeaderSHIP and should give the industry and SEA Europe orientation in the coming years in order to enhance the European maritime technology industry’s competitiveness.” One of the great hopes for high spec retrofit work has already taken a knock, though, with the postponement of the entry into force of Tier III NOx standards. On this and, more broadly, “the undue uncertainty of implementation of environmental maritime regulations”, the association said that this was not good for business. “It sets back the ambitions of the sector and penalises ‘first movers’ to develop the most environmentally friendly ships and technologies for ‘greener’ operation and benefit of the environment,” the association said in a statement. The fight for greener, high tech work is not confined to Europe, either. China, too, published a new strategy in August this year to save the country’s ailing yards, crippled by high debts and overcapacity left over from
LeaderSHIP 2020 provides a solid political basis for the industry to look to the future, enabling the sector to further increase its innovative and competitive edge
the boom times of the mid-noughties. The new threeyear plan for Chinese yards focuses on improving innovation, pushing for higher quality, lower volume work principally in the offshore market, providing better funding support and adding strict controls on capacity. Only the latter, clearly, is missing from the European version. China aims to take 25% of the global market share for high tech ships and 20% of the world offshore market by 2015. The Chinese also aim to consolidate yards and increase domestic demand in part by encouraging the scrapping of older less efficient vessels and replacing them with modern fuel efficient ships. Japanese yards led by Mitsui Engineering and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are already pushing ahead with bold research work of their own (see elsewhere in this publication for examples) and are heavily involved in high-end retrofit and innovative ship design work themselves. Competition for green, high tech, high value work will be fierce, then. Europe’s yards must be happy to be back at the forefront of EU industrial policy, but they must not expect the future to be easy.
European yards like Meyer Werft have a history of high-spec conversion and retrofit work, but competition can be fierce from elsewhere
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Classification
Class wars Classification societies have the largest role to play as shipowners switch to LNG, but who are the front runners in the field? There’s a clear boom in shipowners switching to LNG as a fuel as the tight ECA rules on sulphur emissions bite. While most of the moves have come as newbuild orders, the first handful of conversion contracts are starting to trickle in and it seems likely that more will follow, especially as fuel infrastructure comes online. New technology and new operational requirements mean new rules, new guidance for owners and crew and new technical challenges, particularly in supply, of course. It’s classification societies who have the largest role to play in fulfilling these needs. Bureau Veritas was the first class society to work on dual fuel designs for gas carriers and has a market lead in the sector, while Norway’s DNV, which has had rules for LNG-powered ships since 2001 as the country’s gas supplies and high maritime use have allowed the its owners to become early adopters. They’re not the only societies seeking to claim the front-runner spot in the eyes of owners and port operators, though. The other main class societies have not been left out of the rush for LNG. ABS claims a total lock on US LNG work, RINA is working hard on infrastructure in the Med and LR has made strides in vessel design and classification. Martial Claudepierre, marine environmental leader for BV, is clear that gas is the future, describing BV’s experience in the field as “massive”. “Burning LNG at sea in marine engines is not a new technology,” he said. “The first LNG carrier fitted with dual fuel engines was built to BV class and delivered in 2004 and since then more than 100 LNG carriers burning gas, most of them fitted with Wärtsilä DF engines and electric propulsion, have been ordered. BV has very strong experience with gas engines now.” DNV’s segment director for natural gas, Lars Petter Blikom, was equally bullish on the society’s chances when he spoke to Green Shipping. Asked if he expected
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DNV’s greater experience in the LNG field to give the society a lead in the market, he gave a flat, one-word answer: “Yes.” While there are new factors to be considered when dealing with LNG-fuelled ship orders, in addition to the possibility of additional work in fields such as risk assessment, Blikom feels that DNV’s extra years give it a competitive edge. “The classification scheme for the ships is the same regardless of fuel choice, so LNG propulsion does not alter our role,” he said. “It may involve a bit more work as there are new technology and new suppliers involved. Our extensive experience allows us to provide better advice and to be more efficient in our approval work.” ABS VP of global gas development Bill Sember isn’t convinced smaller-scale Norwegian experiences translate well elsewhere, though. “While Norway does have a history of using LNG as a fuel, the country’s regulatory requirements and best practices may not be applicable to other areas,” he told Green Shipping. “In North America, and the US in particular, there are a number of significant operational and safety differences with the current LNG market in Europe that are being reviewed by the appropriate regulatory bodies.” “To date in the US, ABS is the only classification society to serve on commercial LNG fuel projects. No other classification society can bring together the experience, credibility, relationships and technical investments of ABS on this issue.” All the main societies agree that each ship requires its own solution, and that while class can help, operators also have to take responsibility for effective running and safety. They also all agree that bunkering infrastructure and, crucially, crew training are vital. Claudepierre said: “On the ship there are two issues: the physical means and location of bunkering and the crew competence. Crews on gas carriers are trained in and used to handling LNG. Crews on cargo ships will not be, so special LNG bunkering training will be required.” Bilkom expects bunkering to take shape very quickly as demand grows. “Availability of LNG is a key requirement before making an investment decision for an LNG-fuelled ship,” he said. “For the already delivered ships, and those currently on order, LNG supply has been agreed on a case by case basis. In the future, we expect more generic fuelling stations will be available. But for a few more years,
shipowners and fuel suppliers must set up infrastructure on a case by case basis.” He added, though: “We expect all the major North European ports will offer LNG supply from 2015.” Sember said the same pattern was being mirrored in the US. “We are seeing many requests for information including requests for bunkering and refuelling facilities. Due to [ABS’s] experience in the region and our efforts with the US Coast Guard, we are seeing interest in this topic around the world,” he said. “[Owners looking to adopt LNG] must consider a number of factors including when will the infrastructure be in place to support their operations, where will it be located, what regulations are in place or are being proposed that may affect LNG fuel propulsion and what crew training is available.” It’s the difficulties and technical challenges to be overcome in establishing
While Norway does have a history of using LNG as a fuel, the country’s regulatory requirements and best practices may not be applicable to other areas
a supply network where RINA is focusing its own efforts in the Mediterranean. It is co-ordinating the COSTA (CO2 and Ship Transport Abatement by LNG) project to determine and overcome challenges to LNG adoption in the Mediterranean. “The COSTA project will learn from the Baltic and Norwegian experience and also look at the feasibility of Europe’s Atlantic islands, including the Madeira and the Azores becoming transatlantic LNG bunkering stations,” Cogliolo said. “We have a large chain of LNG terminals already in the Mediterranean. Our next move has to be to find common standards that all these terminals can adopt and so move forward to build the bunker chain shipping needs to make this transition to cleaner and cheaper fuel.” In the rapidly-changing market for alternative maritime fuels, without a single overarching regulatory framework to underpin it as yet, class will clearly have a front line role to play for some time and each society can claim its own strengths.
The first dual-fuel gas carriers were classed by BV, but which society is current top dog depends on who you believe
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Technology
Coatings scrunch up to shake fouling Researchers at Duke University in the US have developed a novel antifouling material that “wrinkles” on demand to shake loose bacteria and other microorganisms. The coating can be applied like paint and has been lab tested in simulated seawater both against biofilm buildup and barnacle growth
“We have developed a material that ‘wrinkles,’ or changes its surface in response to a stimulus, such as stretching or pressure or electricity,” said Duke engineer Xuanhe Zhao. “This deformation can effectively detach biofilms and other organisms that have accumulated on the surface.” “Nature has offered many solutions to deal with this buildup of biological materials that we as engineers can try to recreate,” said Gabriel Lopez, MRSEC director and professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering and materials science. “For example, the hair-like structures known as cilia can move foreign particles from the lungs and respiratory tract. In the same manner, these types of structures are used by mollusks and corals to keep their surfaces clean. To date, however, it is been difficult to reproduce the cilia, but controlling the surface of a material could achieve the same result.” Bacteria and other microorganisms often attract larger organisms such as seaweeds and marine larvae which grow into larger fouling. “It is known that bacterial films can recruit other organisms, so stopping the accumulation process from the beginning in the first place would make a lot of sense,” Lopez said. The Duke research was funded by the National Science Foundation-backed Research Triangle Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) and the US Office of Naval Research.
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Automated mooring and charging for battery-powered ferry The world’s first battery-powered ferry, a 120 car/360 passenger ro-pax catamaran that will operate between Larvik and Oppedal on Norway’s Sognefjord from 2015, will employ an integrated automated mooring and charging system at both terminal berths. Swiss industrial group Cavotec has been awarded the contract to supply the systems for operator Norled. “These are the first systems anywhere in the world that integrate automated mooring and automated shore-to-ship Alternative Maritime Power (AMP). This project demonstrates Cavotec’s capacity for innovation, and our ability to offer integrated systems that maximise efficiency gains and environmental performance,” said Sofus Gedde-Dahl, managing director of Cavotec’s Norwegian subsidiary arm. “The extent of technical innovation and system integration of this project shows how port operations can be made dramatically more sustainable and efficient,” said Sigvald Breivik, Norled’s technical director. The automated mooring units will be triggered by remote control by the ship’s captain. The mooring system will signal to the AMP unit when the ship is secure and a laser sensor will then guide the AMP connector to a hatch in the side of the vessel, connect to the ship’s battery and start charging during passenger boarding. The ferry’s propulsion system can be switched off for nine minutes of every 10 minute boarding interval, which the company claims is “more than sufficient time” to connect and charge the vessel’s batteries. “With around 6,000 port calls made annually on the Lavik-Oppedal route, the air quality improvement and fuel cost savings compared to using conventional mooring and power systems is considerable,” the company said. Cavotec’s automated mooring systems are already in use at a few Danish ferry terminals, with a further installation in the Netherlands due to enter service next year. This is the first time the technology has been combined with a power supply system as well.
The automated charging system for Norled’s electric ferry will be the first of its kind anywhere in the world
© Norled
EMP closing in on commercial launch Japan’s Eco Marine Power has continued to push development of its wind/solar energy generation EnergySail and associated performance monitoring and control technology. The company has held talks for a testbed sail installation on a commercial vessel, and in the meantime, at the time of going to press, is about to launch its Aquarius Management and Automation System, the first product the company has actually brought to market. EMP’s Greg Atkinson said things were progressing well. “Testing of the prototype commenced last year starting with the computer control system and simulators,” he told Green Shipping. “We are now in the process of expanding the tests (and test lab) and moving towards testing a complete prototype. We aim to complete all lab testing by the autumn and then move on to sea trials. So far, lot of our focus has been on software development, hence the reason we started with the control system. This is the unseen part of the development, but our view is that the software and the computer system developed with KEI System in Osaka is one of our key strengths and a major innovation.” KEI’s data logger forms the core of the new Aquarius MAS. KEI’s software has been installed for some time on bulkers, tugs and training vessels and is used to monitor the performance of on-board equipment and systems, including renewable power generation and storage modules. EMP’s work adds automated control and feedback systems to the monitoring core for better vessel optimisation and efficiency. The MAS will tie in to the broader MRE system under development for the company’s solar sails, which function both as auxiliary wind propulsion and as solar arrays. Commercial interest is in its early stages, but there is, Atkinson said, most definitely interest. “We have been in contact with some ship owners and are currently discussing with one the possibility of working together during the sea trials phase,” he said. “We expect there will be a lot more interest in the Aquarius MRE System and the EnergySail among shipowners and shipyards once the prototype testing is complete and we move onto the sea trials.” He sounded one note of warning, however, when describing the difficulties faced when trying to persuade the industry to embrace renewable energy. “It is a little
disappointing that the sector at the moment seems willing to spend considerable amounts of money on moving towards LNG as a fuel, but appears reluctant to put the same effort into renewables,” he said. “We hope to change that and I feel we have already had some success in raising the profile of not only our own technologies and solutions, but of the use of renewables on ships in general.” The company has also signed a collaboration agreement with Italian solar cell manufacturer Solbian to incorporate Solbian’s existing solar technology, developed initially for racing yachts, into EMP’s EnergySail and to the company’s AquariusUSV and Eco Ship design concepts. Solbian’s cells use lightweight polymer film instead of glass, making them light and flexible, but also giving them high weathering resistance and long service life. “We do not expect there to be a lot of work needed to incorporate Solbian technology into the EnergySail and also into our other design projects, such as the AquariusUSV and Medaka Eco-Commuter Ferry,” Atkinson said. “The Solbian technology appears ideally suited for what we are working on and we have one of their flexible panels in the lab now which will be incorporated into our testing schedule very shortly. Moving forward, we believe we will be able to work with Solbian to develop more applications for its PV technology and undertake some joint R&D using feedback from our lab tests and sea trials. The major improvements we expect to see are the increase in the amount of solar we can incorporate into the EnergySail and our other solutions.”
Automated efficiency on the rise The introduction of SEEMP requirements from the start of this year has allowed developers to introduce automated SEEMP management software enabling noticeable fuel consumption savings with minimal crew effort. Finland’s NAPA is one of the early starters and this summer signed deals with compatriot company Bore and Norwegian Cruise Line. NCL will use NAPA’s software across its fleet for voyage and performance optimisation and evaluation of different energy efficiency measures. Bore’s deal is smaller and will see the software used on one of its ro-ros, but both this and the NCL contract follow on from three months of sea trials on a sister www.greenshippinginternational.com
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vessel operating between Cadiz and Naples and Cadiz and Pauillac last year. The trials delivered a 5.8% reduction in fuel consumption on the vessel, compared to a 63-day logged reference phase without the software, equivalent to 320 tonnes of fuel valued then at US$210,000. The software system is a joint development between NAPA and ClassNK. The company said that through normalisation calculations the difference in average speed, the effect of wind, and constant switching from rpm mode to combinator mode were factored out of the trial results. Speed optimisation alone created a 5% reduction in fuel consumption, with potential from trim optimisation providing another 0.8%. Through this normalisation process and data analysis, NAPA claims substantial additional savings of approximately 10% from WE Tech Solutions’Variable Frequency Drive Shaft Generator (VFD SG) application. Bore’s Jörgen Mansnerus said: “We are exceptionally pleased with the outcome of this trial of NAPA for Operations SEEMP systems. We challenged NAPA to prove that an electronic SEEMP could provide measurable and tangible fuel and cost savings to our fleet and this study does just that. During the benchmarking period, we saw that the business-as-usual annual consumption of Bore Sea would be around 5,600 tonnes. Given the 5.8% savings afforded by implementing two elements of the NAPA package, we should see significant financial savings.” NAPA has also inked an agreement with oceanographic data supplier Tidetech to use its tidal current prediction models, initially for South East Asia and UK-Europe. The move follows another three month trial, this time on board a cruise vessel operating between Thailand and the straits of Malacca and Singapore. Tidetech managing director Penny Haire said the trial had demonstrated the capability for flexible, custom data delivery and the instant, low cost efficiency gains to be found through integrated oceanographic data. “We supplied a custom data file which is pre-defined by NAPA to suit the bandwidth capability of the vessel,” Haire said. “Integrating our data into optimisation systems and software is a relatively simple, quick and low-cost way for ships to gain demonstrable percentage savings in bunkerage and emissions.” To ensure maximum information with minimum bandwidth, Tidetech, NAPA and the cruise line together defined the critical areas of operation. Tidetech then extracted focused data from the broader model. NAPA’s Esa Henttinen said: “By adding Tidetech’s accurate oceanographic data to NAPA’s voyage optimisation solution, we have been able to provide our customers with more precise voyage predictions. Automated process also reduces remarkably the time needed for daily voyage planning.” The successful cruise ship trial resulted in NAPA immediately adding Tidetech’s North Sea and English Channel models to UK–Europe ferry routes. Haire said cruise ships and passenger ferries were already well equipped to download data files. “Passenger vessels in particular usually already have broadband connections aboard,” she said. “With optimisation solutions in place, it’s relatively straightforward to integrate the data once downloaded.”
Innovation Greece. “Our R&D activities, such as the carbon capture initiative, which is completely new in the field of maritime transportation, pave the future towards next-generation solutions for achieving more energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and sustainable maritime transportation”. PSE managing director Costas Pantelides described it as “a challenging design problem with tight constraints”. “Applying a model-based engineering approach has been key to exploring the process decision space rapidly and effectively, and developing technically feasible and economically viable solutions,” he said. Because shipping’s CO2 emissions are concentrated as individual point sources, unlike most other forms of transport, DNV believes onboard carbon capture is a uniquely viable area for the industry to look at. The technology is new, even for shore-based applications, not to mention highly expensive, and the DNV project was thus a theoretical exercise, but the future prospects for maritime CCS are interesting. The costs involved will inevitably fall as CCS equipment becomes more mainstream, and there could be enough industrial demand for CO2 to make the end product saleable in itself. As well as existing, albeit limited, uses in enhanced oil and gas recovery from near-empty fields, algal biofuel production, a sector likely to bloom in the coming decades, uses extra CO2 for algae growth. If marine biofuel creation takes off, the financial hurdles to maritime CCS could be greatly reduced.
Carnival opts for automated fuel switching Safe and reliable fuel switching between HFO and distillates when entering and leaving ECAs has been a source of some concern since the sulphur rules were tightened. However, automated systems are now seeing commercial take-up in the market. Carnival Corporation has signed a deal with JOWA Technology to use its Diesel Switch DS Mk II system across the cruise giant’s fleet following extensive testing on board the Grand Princess. The system employes a second display in the engine control room, a compatibility test kit, homogeniser and a GPS connection with date/time stamp. The JOWA Water-in Fuel Emulsion unit was also tested by Carnival and JOWA Technology engineers, with independent monitoring by Lloyd’s Register. It was
Testing of JOWA’s system on the Grand Princess swung the parent line’s decision to fit the technology across its fleet
The far future – carbon capture aboard? A joint project between class society DNV and process modelling company Process Systems Enterprise has successfully developed a concept design for on-board chemical capture, liquefaction and temporary storage of CO2 on board ships during operation, holding the captured CO2 for port discharge and storage. DNV and PSE said the results showed that the concept was technically feasible and capable of reducing maritime CO2 emissions by up to 65%. For a VLCC tanker, this could correspond to capturing more than 70,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. “In response to more stringent environmental regulations and complex market conditions, we see an increased demand for innovative solutions towards higher efficiency and greener operations,” said Nikolaos Kakalis, head of DNV Research &
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© Princess Cruises
one of the first such systems to be developed for commercial sale and the first to carry class society type approval. Carnival said it believes that the automated fuel switching system can save fuel by optimising fuel changeover time when transiting in or out of emission control areas and that the system had proven to be reliable, consistently accurate and to reduce the potential for crew error. JOWA’s equipment can also blend compatible heavy and distillate fuels, using in-line fuel blending to safely mix two compatible fuels to obtain a final product with constant, pre-set sulphur content in accordance with local regulations. The company isn’t the only one selling owners on auto fuel switching, though. Denmark’s Insatech announced the broadly similar S3 Smart Sulphur Switch at this year’s Nor-shipping and has been pushing hard for orders since.
Aida’s forever blowing bubbles Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has begun construction of the first two cruise ships to feature its air lubrication system (MALS). The MALS system blows a “carpet” of bubbles beneath the hull of a ship to reduce friction and has been successfully installed in the past couple of years on two module carriers, a ferry and is being fitted on three grain carriers ordered by Archer Daniels Midland in late 2011. The 124,500 gt cruise vessels, due for delivery in 2015 and 2016 for Germany’s AIDA line, will be the first large passenger vessels to adopt the technology, which is expected to generate fuel savings of around 7%. The company completed slender hull form efficiency trials on the ferry Naminoue late last year. The 8,000 gt ship saw 5% efficiency savings from the use of MALS. The system was originally developed for cargo vessels, which have a considerably flatter bottom than typical passenger ships. The flatter hull shape makes it easier for a continuous air stream to form along the length of the ship. At the time of the AIDA order, MHI described it as “a significant milestone for the MALS as the cruise shipping industry requires definite quality and performance on any devices so this first application in this sector further demonstrates its reliability to the whole shipping industry”.
In addition to the MALS, the AIDA vessels feature a completely new hull design developed in collaboration with MHI and the Hamburg Shipbuilding Research Institute, cutting-edge propulsion, and dual-fuel engines. AIDA president Michael Ungerer said: “With these ships AIDA will set new industry standards for the future both with regard to their new and innovative product features as well as in terms of protecting the environment.”
Mitsui eyes sail power Eco Marine Power isn’t the only Japanese company working on sail power. This summer Mitsui OSK Lines, Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding, Akishima Laboratories, and class society ClassNK jointly began onshore tests of a full-size prototype sailing rig at MES’ Oita Works. The “Power Assist Sail” is an arm-mounted adjustable rig intended to provide supplementary propulsive force for vessels by using the lift force of crosswinds, in a manner similar to the wings of an airplane, and the drag from tailwinds. If tests are successful and the technology becomes commercially available, the number of sailing rigs to be used on a vessel will be adjusted based on the scale of the vessel and the CO2 reduction target required. The goal is to install the sail rig without making major design changes to existing vessels. The companies claim that the Power Assist Sail can reduce CO2 emissions by 2-5%. The test version is 20 metres long and 10 wide, built of aluminium over a steel skeleton. The combined unit weighs 60 tonnes and the hydraulic arm allows it to be stowed horizontally in bad weather or when not in use. “Through this on-shore demonstration test, MOL will examine performance and durability of the equipment and fine-tune the equipment for use on actual vessels,” the company said in a statement. “This initiative reflects MOL’s effort to reduce CO2 emissions as one of the environmental strategies in its single-year management plan RISE 2013. The company takes a proactive stance in introducing various technologies that will reduce the environmental burden of its business activities.”
Keel-laying for the first MALS-equipped Aida vessel took place this summer
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Law
Boxing clever Maersk has called on the EU to take firm action on the phase-out of HCFC-insulated reefer containers and close the current loophones that enable the practice to continue In the past few months, Maersk Container Industry (MCI) has called on EU authorities to tackle the continued importing and trade in HCFCinsulated reefer containers within Europe, despite such trade being banned. Traders are able to circumvent the block thanks to a loophole that allows containers to stay for an uncertain period – some sources say three months, but the grace period could be shorter or longer depending on different interpretations of the law – before they are considered placed on the market. In addition, resale is only part of the problem. The loophole is commonly used when a reefer enters Europe under an owner, stays for an extended period of time and is then moved out again without changing hands. With HCFC-free alternatives that cause no damage to either the ozone layer or the climate now readily available – MCI developed its own based on cyclopentane modified to offer greatly reduced heat loss, Supotec, in 2002 and, after a slow start where for a time it had to revert to HCFC production, stopped using HCFC reefer boxes altogether in 2010 – the company feels there is no excuse to allow the trade to continue until existing legislation requires usage to end in 2020 when they could be phased out faster. In March, MCI met with officials from the European Commission, which has until now insisted that enforcement of the existing rules was the job of member states, to discuss the issue. “After our meetings, the EU executive is looking into a number of ways to act in co-operation with relevant authorities in the 27 member states, for example by issuing precise guidelines for how to interpret and administer reg. 1005/2009 at customs points around Europe,” an MCI spokesman told Green Shipping. “This will happen within a few months.”
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A blanket ban overnight on existing containers would be unfair. But we also believe the phaseout of existing containers could and should take place much faster 85% of the world’s reefer fleet, a little over two million teu, currently uses HCFC141b-based foam insulation and boxes built with it continue to be produced. As well as its ozone-depleting properties it has a global warming potential 725 times higher than CO2 and HCFC-based foam reportedly emits 27 times the amount of CO2 over its working life than alternative insulation. MCI’s figures for Supotec suggest that a 40-foot reefer container with their insulation has a GWP of only 247kg of CO2, compared to 27,400kg for an HCFC141b box. An estimated 70% of newly-manufactured boxes continue to use the substance. All are made in China, which at the time of the writing of the Montreal Protocol banning continued use of ozone-depleting chemicals was an Annex 5 developing country and exempt from the restrictions. The EU produced its own ozone-depleting substances regulations in 2000, coming into effect in 2004, and amended them in 2009 to cover replacement chemicals with high global warming potential. However, existing boxes and those built since elsewhere continue to be brought into, and traded within, its borders.
Even though the trade in HCFC-foam containing boxes is banned in the EU, MCI says it’s actually rife thanks to loopholes the company is pushing hard to see closed
While the European Commission has not at this stage considered a specific timetable for requiring accelerated phase-out of these boxes within the Union, MCI is confident that such a move will come. “More importantly,” the spokesman said, “new purchases of HCFC reefers will be risky business. It will be time for the industry to clean up its act.” “The Commission clearly wants its EU regulation enforced, but it quite naturally also prefers as little disruption as possible to the industry. Based on this balance, it is fair to say that any future investment in HCFC141b reefers is very risky business for any shipping line or leasing company. As for the reefers in existence, the excessive grace periods will be examined closely.” “The message we heard was clear: if the production and shipping industries don’t clean this up themselves, then someone else will come around and do it. This should not be news for the industry, either. The regulation has been in force since 1 January 2004 and Supotec, one of the technological solutions, has been available since 2002.” “Once aware of the enforcement problem, the Commission deserves credit for taking the problem seriously. With regard to HCFC141b, I think it realises that it takes little effort to achieve a big result for the climate and for European-made innovation, in this case Supotec.”
Enforcement guidelines are due to be issued soon, with other moves to follow after. Details were not available at the time of going to press, but MCI said that the Commission would be tightening up hard on the trade in HCFC-laden boxes. MCI was frank in acknowledging its own history of HCFC use and production and about the issues it had encounted when it first introduced Supotec to the market. “We, too, have a responsibility for having produced HCFC141b reefers at some point so we, too, have an interest in a gradual phase-out,” the company’s spokesman said. “A blanket ban overnight on existing containers would be unfair. But we also believe the phase-out of existing containers could and should take place much faster. The industry has known Supotec since 2002 so the climate and ozone layer problem stemming from HCFC141b is nothing new that has sneaked in overnight. It shouldn’t surprise anyone.” “We couldn’t sell Supotec when it first came out. We believe Supotec was too far ahead on the green legislative agenda. Very few shipping lines agreed to buy it when it first came out. Today, companies like Maersk Line, Hapag Lloyd have HCFC141b phase-out policies in place.” www.greenshippinginternational.com
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Design
Clean Sky thinking Green Shipping spoke to Lloyd’s Register’s Nick Brown to learn more about the choices made in the Clean Sky bulker design and the reasons behind them While some, like Precious Shipping’s Khalid Hashim, have a jaundiced view of the raft of “eco” ship designs, many other owners are jumping at the opportunity offered by fuel savings and current low building costs. This spring saw Lloyd’s Register (LR), bulk carrier owner Golden Union and Cosco Shipbuilding Group announce the final LR approval in principle for their joint Clean Sky bulker design. The concept, work on which began in 2011, is based on an existing kamsarmax Cosco design for easy construction and is designed with the option of dual or triple fuel powerplants. LNG is provided from a single 1,160m3 type C tank that sits aft on the port side. Green Shipping: What challenges and considerations have to be made when altering a previous conventional design to use LNG as fuel? How closely did the three parties work together to meet these challenges? Nick Brown: Clearly, LNG presents different levels of risk to conventional fuel oils. The main issue to be addressed was the safe and practical location of the LNG bunker containment system – what type and number of tanks was a critical decision and once agreement was reached on ideal requirements, a suitable location could be identified allowing for safety and operational bunkering requirements. LR has a methodology for identifying risks in novel design concepts where no specific rules or regulations exist. We held risk assessment workshops in the shipyard, with the involvement of experts and specialists in every discipline, from shipowner, shipyard design department, engine maker, containment system maker and LR. The workshops were facilitated by LR’s Risk Assessment Expert and concluded with a HAZOP/HAZID report summarising the comments from each expert. The three parties were working
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very closely during the development of this design by having regular meetings and daily conversations. GS: How great a deviation is the Clean Sky from its predecessor Cosco design? NB: The design is in principle as same as the predecessor Cosco design with several improvements concerning green shipping technologies. Besides the major upgrade to dual-fuel propulsion systems, the deckhouse is optimised with fairings to reduce wind resistance and there are also options for the owner to use a waste heat recovery system. The cargo space is reduced slightly since the deckhouse is moved forward to give enough space for the aft LNG tank. GS: What are the primary advantages in reworking a conventional design to account for alternative propulsion systems when compared to more radical ground-up concepts, especially in the bulker sector? NB: Existing bulker designs have been proved in operations so it makes sense to marry the best of both worlds – a proven design with a novel approach. The bunker storage system has a relatively slight impact on the vessel forward of the engine room bulkhead so it makes sense to leave it alone unless further optimisations can be found. It is true that most innovation in bulker design has been in increasing standard deadweights within LOA, beam and draft envelopes or the introduction of new ship categories such as the supramax and kamsarmax, which are evolutions of handymax and panamax bulk carrier designs. Containership design has also been marked mainly by a tendency to increase size rather than respond to opportunities offered by technical innovation, although the demand for scale has required new ideas or better understanding of, and solutions for, loads and dynamic forces. GS: With the further emission reduction targets inevitable over time, how far can iterative designs like Clean Sky go before more radical overhauls of operation or design are needed? NB: In bulk carrier design we are not anticipating a revolution, rather a continued evolution and efficiencies may be realised just as much in how ships are operated as how they are designed and built.
GS: With emissions reduction and LNG propulsion hot topics, are we likely to see a boom in this type of design work? NB: Taking LNG first, we are seeing take-up mainly in niche markets. LNG is growing in small ship sectors or where operators have control of bunkering in point A to point B trades, such as ferries or in narrow operational areas such as the Norwegian shelf. In the latter area there are also fiscal incentives to reduce NOx emissions that encourage investment in gas as fuel. The LR-classed Viking Grace delivered in January carries 2,800 passengers and provides the exception in scale, but otherwise conforms to the niche development of LNG as it will operate between two fixed points and only has to steam for a maximum of 23 hours between bunkering opportunities. The spread of LNG into deep sea mainstream trades will be a much longer process and, if it takes place, could occur in the container trades first or in a bulk or tank sector where the operator knows LNG will be reasonably available. But for containerships in particular,
the cost advantage of using LNG would have to outweigh the loss of valuable cargo space to high volume LNG as fuel. It is notable that the Clean Sky design still enables HFO and MDO consumption providing the owner of such a ship with flexibility. There probably needs to be as much attention paid to the design of shipping as to more efficient ships; “what is the best supply chain system?” may be the real question for cargo interests. To reduce the global CO2 impact of shipping it is no good developing more efficient ships if they are either unaffordable or impose additional commercial, energy and environmental costs on either side of the seaborne leg. What we are seeing a boom in is the development of new niches, or design approaches for niches. An understanding of risk and opportunity together with more flexibility is required by class to address novel ideas and help ensure that solutions are safe as well as provide improvements in performance.
Bulk carriers are ripe for iterative design changes, according to LR © Fotoflite
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Geographical focus
Fighting for air Air quality in Hong Kong has long been a serious issue and campaigners are worried the new Kai Tak cruise terminal will make matters worse. Green Shipping finds out what moves are under way to improve the situation Hong Kong’s air quality has been an issue for a long time, particularly around its port. While the situation has slowly improved in the past few years, there is a long way still to go and the opening this year of its new Kai Tak cruise terminal has seen protests from campaigners worried about increased sulphur and particulate emissions arising from the extra – and longer – visits of new vessels. The port has tried an incentive-based scheme to encourage owners to use 0.5% sulphur fuel in port to what most would consider a mixed response and mandatory moves are now on the table. That’s not all, though; there has been talk of eventually making the Pearl River Delta into a sulphur ECA under IMO rules and of better programmes for emission reduction and, as a first obvious measure, the setting up of shoreside power facilities at Kai Tak. Green Shipping spoke to Tiffany Leung from Hong Kong NGO the Clean Air Network about the issue and about the future of emissions control at what is still one of the world’s busiest ports. Green Shipping: With feasibility studies into setting up onshore power facilities for cruise vessels at Kai Tak not due to be completed until next year and provision of such facilities therefore not going to happen until 2015 at the earliest, are you frustrated by the rate of progress? Would it have been better to consider air quality issues from the Kai Tak terminal before it was built, given Hong Kong’s history of air pollution? Tiffany Leung: Clean Air Network does believe that the rate of progress is too slow, given that the first mention of plans to seek funding approval for installation
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of on-shower power facilities was made as early as the 2013 Policy Address and that marine vessel emissions pose a growing threat to public health. The government’s air pollution emission inventory report for 2011 indicated that cargo and passenger marine vessels in Hong Kong waters have become the greatest source of our city’s total sulphur dioxide and respirable suspended particulate (PM10) emissions – for instance, an alarming 54% of sulphur dioxide emissions in Hong Kong can be attributed to marine vessels. Moreover, Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui, used primarily by cruise ships, contributes 458 tons of sulphur dioxide emissions annually; this is compared to the amount of Hong Kong’s total road transport sulphur dioxide emissions, which is 474 tons annually. The implications, therefore, for the amount of emissions that will be generated by the new cruise terminal at Kai Tak, are serious. Clean Air Network submitted a joint letter in June, along with environmental NGO Friends of the Earth, to the Chairman of the Panel on Environmental Affairs Cyd Ho, suggesting that the Panel invite Secretary of Commerce and Economic Development Gregory So for a discussion about the installation of on-shower power facilities at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal and other relevant marine vessel emission reduction measures (for example fuel switches at berth), as it was Mr So who made the original announcement regarding the estimated completion date of the feasibility studies. The goal of the meeting would be to determine the steps being taken to move these measures forward at Kai Tak and understand more clearly, what, if any, obstacles there are to successful implementation. Based on such a discussion, Clean Air Network and other invested stakeholders would be able to better formulate policy recommendations surrounding installation of such facilities now and in the future. GS: Is a mandatory switch to 0.5% sulphur fuel enough in Hong Kong’s port area? Given the comparatively low uptake (12% of all visiting ocean-going vessels) of lower sulphur fuel under the incentive scheme to use it, would you have any confidence in any further non-regulatory measures to reduce sulphur emissions in port? TL: According to a Civic Exchange report, the city suffers 385 of the total 519 [annual] deaths directly related to marine vessel sulphur dioxide emissions within the Pearl River Delta. Mandatory at berth fuel-switches to 0.5% sulphur fuel
within Hong Kong waters could reduce this number by almost half (197), which is not insignificant. Despite the comparatively low uptake, the use of lower sulphur fuel undertaken by some members of the shipping industry is still an excellent sign of the industry’s willingness to use new clean technologies. Discussion with stakeholders has found that, understandably, it is more difficult for smaller shipping companies to follow suit and still stay competitive. Clean Air Network believes the government should provide greater incentives to those who voluntarily use lower sulphur fuel in order to encourage greater uptake. This would also reward those who have participated in the Fair Winds Charter, a voluntary at-berth fuel switching initiative begun in 2011 and extended until the end of 2013, and encourage them to continue to participate in the voluntary initiative until fuel switches are mandated, which has been estimated will take place on 1 January, 2015. GS: How hopeful are you that the HK government will be able to reach agreement with the other Pearl River Delta ports on sulphur emissions and overall air pollution issues? TL: The 2012 Pearl River Delta Regional Air Quality Report, jointly released by the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department and the Department of Environmental Protection Guangdong Province, showed that there has been a continuous improvement in air quality in the Pearl River Delta area. Annual average nitrogen dioxide levels decreased 17% compared to levels in 2006, and sulphur dioxide and PM10 levels were 62% and 24% lower, respectively, compared to levels recorded in 2006 All of this indicates that the governments’ joint efforts are having an effect. Therefore, Clean Air Network sees great promise for the governments of Hong Kong and the rest of the Pearl River Delta region being able to work together to combat the air pollution issue. Establishment of an emission-control area (ECA), an area mandating that marine vessels must use lower sulphur fuel when within a particular range, would prove enormously beneficial to public health in the Pearl River Delta region. About 95% of sulphur dioxide emissions and 85% of PM10 emissions in the area would be reduced if an ECA were created. Deaths related to marine vessel sulphur dioxide emissions in Hong Kong would be reduced by 91%.
Chinese yard wins landmark first DFDE gas carrier deal Shanghai’s Hudong-Zhonghua yard has become the first in China to win orders for dual-fuel diesel electrical (DFDE) gas carriers. The sixship deal will see Denmark’s MAN Diesel & Turbo supply five dual-fuel engines to each of the six 174,000 cbm vessels. MAN described the 30 engine order as “a significant development for both Chinese shipyards as well as the LNGC market”. The ships are owned by a consortium formed by Sinopec Kantons, MOL and Shanghai-based CSLNG, a daughter company of China Shipping. When delivered, the ships will operate on the Gladstone, Australia to Chinese import terminals trade. Steel will be cut for the first ship at the start of next year, and the last will be delivered at the end of 2017. The engines, all IMO Tier II compliant in diesel mode and having lower emissions in gas mode than Tier III stipulates, will be designed and built at MAN’s Augsburg works in Germany, and will enable the ships to operate under fuel sharing mode, running with a mixture of fuel gas (NG, NBOG) and fuel oil (MGO, MDO or HFO) at specific ratios. Under China’s new three-year shipbuilding strategy, the country’s struggling yards are being encouraged to source higher quality, higher technical capability orders rather than high-volume contracts in simpler sectors.
Singapore’s Maritime Cluster Fund lures FutureShip
The maritime engineering and consultancy arm of German class society Germanischer Lloyd, FutureShip, has opened a new eco research centre in Singapore. The centre will carry out research to boost the company’s energy efficiency design offerings for GL’s Asian clients and will be part-funded by Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority through its Maritime Cluster Fund. While GL’s classification stablemate DNV already has its green technology centre in Singapore, FutureShip’s will be the first to draw funding from the MCF, which was set up to lure R&D and testing facilities to the city to turn Singapore into a “maritime knowledge hub”. MPA chief executive Lam Yi Young said: “MPA has been actively promoting maritime R&D and innovation development over the past decade. The setting up of R&D and test centres in Singapore will further strengthen our maritime R&D capabilities and position us as a centre of excellence for maritime technology. We are thus happy to welcome the setting up of FutureShip’s ECO Research Centre in Singapore.” “We’re pleased to operate our R&D centre in Singapore, the global maritime hub, and we feel honoured to receive such a solid support from MPA,” said GL’s Albrecht Grell. “With a variety of initiatives to promote sustainable shipping and energy-efficient ship designs, Singapore is developing into a centre of excellence for maritime research and development. This provides us with an ideal operating environment, while fitting well with our long-term strategy to maintain our leading-edge position in maritime consulting services.” The centre will embark on “Analytical Ship Performance Evaluation and Management” as its first project and will conduct a number of R&D projects over the next five years. FutureShip opened its own Singaporean subsidiary in October last year. Its managing director Khorshed Alam said: “Singapore’s uniqueness as a green shipping hub also allows us to fan out from here to other areas in Asia.”
MHI and Chengxi Shipyard in ground-breaking collaboration on ballast water
Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and China’s Chengxi Shipyard have agreed a collaboration deal on ballast water treatment systems installation that will see MHI supplying technology and experience to the repair yard. The two companies agreed that Chengxi had been seeking “to strengthen its business by introducing advanced technologies in the field”. “By combining MHI’s advanced technologies accumulated from its abundant experience in ship conversion work, including BWTS installation, and Chengxi Shipyard (Xinrong)’s ability to respond to ship conversion needs and its cost competitiveness, the two companies look to establish an advantageous position in the global market in this field,” MHI said in a statement. Under the new agreement, the two companies will closely collaborate throughout the retrofitting process, from BWTS marketing, system selection and design to actual installation work. MHI will provide the drawings necessary for undertaking retrofitting work of BWTS. It will also dispatch supervisors to the site in China when necessary and conduct training in Japan for engineers of the Chinese shipyard at its Yokohama Dockyard & Machinery Works, where MHI performs ship retrofitting, maintenance and repair work. In the future, when an order is received calling for retrofitting of BWTS on multiple ships of the same type, engineers from Chengxi will participate in work on the first ship at MHI’s Yokohama plant in order to acquire the necessary know-how. Subsequent work on the other ships will then be undertaken primarily at the Chinese shipyard. This arrangement will enable work to be performed on more ships in a short period at lower cost. “MHI views the new collaborative arrangement with Chengxi Shipyard (Xinrong) as a significant step forward in terms of both its BWTS installation business and its engineering operations and it intends to leverage this development as a springboard to new business opportunities,” the company said. www.greenshippinginternational.com
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Events 2013 30 September 2 October 2013
Seatrade Middle East Workboats & Offshore Marines Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates www.middleeastworkboats.com
2-3 October 2013 Offshore Patrol and Security Asia Pacific Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia www.ops-asia-pacific.com
8-10 October 2013 INMEX India 2013 www.inmexindia.com
28-31 October 2013
14-15 November 2013
Management of Air Emissions from Shipping Seminar London www.lloydsmaritimeacademy.com
18-21 November 2013
Offshore Marine Indonesia 2013 Jakarta, Indonesia www.offshoremarineindonesia.com
26 November 2013
TURKISH MARITIME FORUM 2013 www.turkishmaritimeforum.com
26-29 November 2013 LNG Shipping
LNG Bunkering Korea
Singapore www.lngshippingasia.com
JW Marriott Seoul, Korea www.lngbunkeringkorea.com
27-28 November 2013
11-12 November 2013
FSRU
Lagos, Nigeria
Singapore www.fsruconference.com
Offshore Security - Oil and Gas - Nigeria Summit enquiries@nispana.com for more enquiries
3-4 December 2013
11-13 November 2013 Bunker Management School seminar 2013 Bonhill House, London, UK www.lloydsmaritimeacademy.com
13-14 November 2013 Transport Security Expo
Management of Ships’ Waste Seminar London www.lloydsmaritimeacademy.com
3-6 December 2013 Marintec China 2013 Shanghai www.marintecchina.com
London Olympia www.transec.com
www.greenshippinginternational.com pageturning technology visit: www.>>>>>.com
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The M/S Viking Grace is the first passenger ship of this size to feature dual fuel propulsion
The order includes the engineering, delivery and commissioning of 2 FMB-VM auxiliary boilers fitted with SKVG 50 burners 4 exhaust gas economizers 1 HFO supply module 1 MGO supply module 2 gas valve units installed in ventilated housings 1 fail-safe PLC control system (se @ vis type)
ALL ABOARD FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION sc ov sc er t ru he bb a er ll n sy ew st em SA fo ACK rH E FO LM bo B ile rs .+
The new cruise ferry M/S Viking Grace can carry around 2.800 passengers and is the first vessel of this size to feature dual fuel propulsion. Its engines run on heavy fuel oil (HFO), marine diesel oil (MDO), marine gas oil (MGO) and natural gas (LNG). As a result, the ferry: – is free from dependency on the cost of individual fuels
– can vastly reduce SOx, NOx and CO2 emissions, thereby ensuring long-term compliance with emissions regulations
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SAACKE supplied the boiler systems including the SKVG burners and the exhaust gas economizers. The burners run on heavy fuel oil (HFO), marine gas oil (MGO) and – for the first time in the world on a passenger ship of this size – on natural gas (LNG) too. Operating as a system supplier, SAACKE has been producing its own marine boilers since 1999.
SAACKE GmbH ∙ Bremen ∙ GERMANY ∙ www.saacke.com
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Dual fuel – safe, economical and ecofriendly