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Siemens Gamesa, Norther share Belgian O&M home

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The developers of the Norther offshore wind farm and Siemens Gamesa have moved into a new operations and maintenance base at the Port of Ostend in Belgium.

Siemens Gamesa will use the centre to maintain its 42 7.35MW turbines at Otary's Rentel project. The hardware was installed 40km off the Belgian coast in the summer, with full commissioning of the project expected soon.

The 370MW Norther development is currently under construction and will be managed from the new base. The project is expected to come online in the third quarter of next year.

Once fully operational, the maintenance centre, which was developed by the port, will house a total of 35 employees – 15 from Siemens Gamesa and 20 from Norther.

Siemens Gamesa chief executive An Stroobandt said: "We are looking forward to further expansion and growth for ourselves and for our suppliers in the coming years.”

The Port of Ostend said it is undergoing significant expansion, and the new building offers 900 metres square of warehouse space and 2100 metres squared of offices.

It added that some 460 people in the area are employed in wind farm maintenance and operations.

Port of Ostend chief executive Dirk Declerck said: "Because the needs of the companies that build and operate the wind turbines are constantly evolving in line with the trends in high technology, the port will continue to invest in accurate infrastructure.”

Source:renews

Refitted MARMOK-A-5 is bobbing again in BiMEP waters

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This major milestone kick-starts the second testing campaign of the floating OWC device which integrates the main innovations developed in the OPERA project

Following the successful open-sea testing of the baseline configuration for two consecutive winters at BiMEP, the floating OWC prototype, developed by Oceantec (now part of IDOM GROUP) and dubbed MARMOK-A-5, was towed into port in June for a thorough inspection, conditioning and integration of the different innovations that have been developed in the OPERA project.

During this first deployment, MARMOK-A-5 has demonstrated survivability in rough seas up to 14 m maximum wave height and displayed increasing availability reaching 85%. The research team has been able to gain more than 1,000 man-hours of experience in operation and maintenance as well as confidence in its power performance and mooring system robustness.

Yesterday, the modified WEC configuration was redeployed for its second phase of open-sea trials. MARMOK-A-5 will be in the water for approximately another year and will provide valuable data to assess long term cost reductions.

The upgraded MARMOK-A-5 integrates a high performance biradial turbine (developed by Kymaner) and advanced control laws (developed by Tecnalia, IST, University of Exeter and University of Cork) previously tested at Mutriku. The shared mooring system configuration comprises two elastomeric tethers (developed by the University of Exeter) aimed at reducing peak loads, thus enhancing structural survivability.

The first development received funding from the Basque Energy Agency under a Pre-commercial Procurement Contract.

OPERA is an international project consortium, coordinated by Tecnalia, comprising 11 academic and industrial partners. The project aims to develop and de-risk technologies that will reduce the cost of operating wave energy devices at sea by 50% and subsequently accelerate the roll out of marine renewable energy.

Source:opera-h2020

BorWin Gamma nears finish line

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The 900MW BorWin Gamma platform is set to reach the installation site in the German North Sea “on schedule” on Saturday night, according to transmission system operator TenneT.

Heavy lift vessel Xiang He Kou, which is transporting BorWin Gamma, has passed the islands of Guernsey and Jersey in the English Channel and is now heading towards the Strait of Dover, a TenneT spokeswoman .

In early September, Dubai shipyard Drydocks World shipped out the 18,000-tonne topside that will be installed some 130km off the German coast in water depths of about 40 metres.

BorWin Gamma will be the grid hub of the BorWin3 HVDC connection scheduled to go online in 2019.

In 2014, TenneT ordered BorWin Gamma from a consortium of Petrofac and Siemens.

Siemens supplied the complete HVDC converter technology and main electrical equipment, while Petrofac's remit covered engineering, construction and offshore installation of the platform.

Petrofac awarded the contract to Drydocks World for fabrication, commissioning and load-out of the topside.

Source:renews

Global seaborne trade expanding at improved 4% rate: UNCTAD

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Seaborne trade is expected to grow by 4% this year, the same as in 2017, which was the fastest rate for five years, according to the 2018 edition of the UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport.

Volumes across all segments are set to grow, with containerised and bulk commodities outpacing tanker volumes, says the report, partly because of ongoing supply-demand improvements.

UNCTAD projects an average annual growth rate in total volumes of 3.8% up to 2023.

While the prospects for seaborne trade are positive, these are threatened by the outbreak of trade wars and increased inward-looking policies, warned Mukhisa Kituyi, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. “Escalating protectionism and tit-for-tat tariff battles will potentially disrupt the global trading system which underpins demand for maritime transport.”

Meanwhile, liner shipping consolidation, technological advances, and climate change policy are key drivers of change in global shipping, says the annual UNCTAD report, a repository of voluminous statistics and now marking its 50th year of publication.

Source:seatrade-maritime

Boskalis inks US Navy salvage contract

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Royal Boskalis Westminster (Boskalis) announced that its subsidiary SMIT Salvage was awared two five-year marine salvage contracts to serve as the exclusive marine salvage and engineering support contractor for the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), the division of the US Navy responsible for engineering, building, buying and maintaining Navy ships and submarines, Boskalis in a statement.

SMIT Salvage will provide the US Navy with marine salvage, salvage-related towing, ocean engineering and towage services in the event of an emergency or incident in two of the the geographic zones in the world as defined by the US Navy.

SMIT Salvage held a contract for one zone covering the area between the Suez Canal and the dateline – the imaginary line down the Pacific Ocean on which the calendar day begins and ends – for a number of periods totaling more than 30 years, which it was able to renew. In addition, the contract for a second zone between the dateline and the US West Coast was successfully awarded. 

With the award of the third and final contract to its US partner Donjon Marine, the companies are able to provide worldwide marine salvage support to the US Navy.

SMIT Salvage and Donjon Marine established the joint venture Donjon-SMIT to provide salvage services to vessels trading in US waters under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA-90) and related US state regulations.

Source:seatrade-maritime

ExxonMobil reportedly considering divestment of Gulf of Mexico assets

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ExxonMobil is reportedly considering divesting a number of its US Gulf of Mexico oil assets, according to multiple online sources.

Sources familiar with the matter were quoted by Reuters as saying that the sale plan is the result of the US-based ExxonMobil’s review of its portfolio. Expected to take place in 2019, the sale would enable the company to concentrate on offshore areas such as Guyana and Brazil and onshore in the Permian basin of Texas.

According to Reuters, a few companies have been approached by ExxonMobil to determine their ‘potential interest’ in acquiring the oil assets. The sale could include the disposal of deepwater assets in the Gulf of Mexico that produce nearly 50,000 b/d of oil.

An ExxonMobil spokesperson told Reuters: “ExxonMobil continually reviews its assets for their contribution toward meeting the company’s operating needs, financial objectives and their potential value to others. We remain committed to conducting business in the US Gulf region, as we have for more than 100 years.”

ExxonMobil’s assets in the Gulf of Mexico include the Julia oil field and Hadrian South natural gas field in which the company owns 50% and 46.7% stakes, respectively. The company also holds 9% of Heidelberg field and 23.3% of the Lucius oil and gas fields.

Source:offshore-mag

Exxon Mobil Eyes Major Investment at Singapore Refinery

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Exxon Mobil Corp is considering a multi-billion dollar investment at its Singapore refinery, the company's largest, ahead of new global shipping fuel regulations starting in 2020, a senior executive said on Wednesday.

"We are currently assessing a multi-billion project in our integrated manufacturing facility here in Singapore," Matt Bergeron, vice president of Asia Pacific Fuels Business at Exxon, said at a bunkering conference.

"Should the project proceed, we plan to implement proprietary technologies that will convert lower value by-products into cleaner higher value products including 0.5 percent sulphur fuels that we believe will be the compliant option for the vast majority of the marine sector," Bergeron said.

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is introducing new rules on marine fuels from 2020, limiting the sulphur content to 0.5 percent, from 3.5 percent currently, to curb pollution produced by the world's ships.

The shipping and oil refining industries are scrambling to prepare for the shift and have made large investments to comply with the new standards since they were announced in 2016.

Exxon's Singapore refinery is the company's largest, with a capacity of about 592,000 barrels a day. Singapore is also home to the oil giant's biggest integrated petrochemical complex.

"We have already made significant investments at a number of other refineries around the world in order to increase our production capacity of cleaner fuels with lower sulphur content," Bergeron said.

Exxon in September announced it was planning to spend more than $650 million to upgrade the UK's largest oil refinery, Fawley, on England's south coast.

Source:marinelink

APM Terminals Brazil Uses Augmented Reality to Train Workers

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No, using augmented reality to train workers is not a science fiction! The HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment) team at APM Terminals Brazil developed an augmented reality (AR) app for employees, contractors and visitors to download on their phones which provided video and 3D information about risks and safety operations in the terminal and office buildings.

For Global Safety Day this year, employees and contractors took part in an experiment to see if the new and developing technology could be used to teach safety measures across the operation in a campaign titled "Stronger & Safer Together".

After opening the app, users pointed their phone at stickers placed on a piece of equipment or on the floor or wall of an office building. Then safety information about the location or equipment – such as a reach stacker used to move containers around the terminal – was displayed on the screen, said Gabriel Fiorda Guarnieri, HSE Coordinator for APM Terminals Brazil.

In the case of the reach stacker, the app provided details of the safe distance to stand away from the machine while it was in operation. An animation showed the range of motion the machine was capable of and how much space it need to carry and stack containers in the yard.

Another digital marker on the ground — much like a poster — showed potentially unsafe areas at the entrance to the terminal area. Previously, the operational layout of some areas of the terminal were only available on paper. Now they can be accessed at any time via the AR app.

Working with a local contractor, the health and safety team developed marketing campaign materials that were accessed via posters and stickers with a graphic design that triggered access to the 3D information and safety training videos.

The markers and stickers functioned like QR codes, prompting the phone app to display the requested materials. The AR information was used during the Global Safety Day discussion sessions, meetings, interventions and pre-shift talks. Users could access the animations and videos through their cell phones all day and the system is still in place.

APM has joined organisations such as Boeing, DHL, and the U.S. Marine Corps in adding augmented reality to employee training to improve effectiveness. Market researchers estimate that overall demand for augmented reality will drive market growth from $11.4 billion in 2018 to $60.55 billion by 2023.

Source:marinelink

Singapore Bunkering Hub Ready for IMO 2020

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Singapore authorities are taking measures to ensure the availability of low-sulphur marine fuels ahead of upcoming emissions regulations in 2020, Singapore's Senior Minister of State for Transport and Health Lam Pin Min said on Wednesday.

"(The) MPA is working closely with the industry to ensure that Singapore is ready to supply low-sulphur compliant fuels ahead of 1 January, 2020," said Lam at the Singapore International Bunkering Conference and Exhibition.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) will make available a list of licensed bunker suppliers of low-sulphur fuels by mid-2019, said Lam.

Singapore is the the world's largest marine refueling, or bunkering, hub.

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is introducing new rules on marine fuels from 2020, limiting the sulphur content to 0.5 percent, from 3.5 percent currently, to curb pollution produced by the world's ships.

Singapore is also continuing to promote the use of cleaner-burning liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a marine fuel, also called bunkers, at home and abroad.

The MPA also announced on Wednesday that the Suez Canal Economic Zone Authority has joined the LNG Bunkering Port Focus Group, the first Middle Eastern port to do so, in an effort to strengthen LNG-bunkering capabilities across key global ports.

"The growing membership will strengthen the global network of LNG bunkering facilities and give shipping lines more confidence to invest in LNG-fueled vessels," said Lam.

The working group was first formed by port authorities in Singapore, Belgium and the Netherlands in 2014 and is now comprised of 12 ports across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America.

Using LNG to power ships instead of fuel oil or marine gasoil can reduce emissions of the pollutants nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxide by 90 percent to 95 percent.

Singapore had record bunker fuel sales in 2017 of 50.6 million tonnes.

Source:marinelink

ClassNK: New Guidelines for Vehicles Carriers

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Classification society ClassNK has released its Guidelines for Vehicles Carrier Structures, specifying the technical requirements specifically related to the structural strength assessments of vehicles carriers by using direct calculation.

Vehicles carriers are designed with a minimum number of transverse bulkheads and partial bulkheads in order to increase cargo handling efficiency as well as to permit more vehicles to be loaded on board; this, however, means that the structures of such ships are fairly susceptible to racking deformation. In recent years, new types of vehicles carriers have been entering service in increasing numbers, including post-panamax and bulkhead-free designs. In consideration of such circumstances, ClassNK released its Guidelines for Racking Strength Assessment of Vehicles Carriers—Guidelines for Evaluation of Yielding Strength— in November 2016 in order to clarify unified evaluation procedures for vehicles carriers with various structural design types. As its next step, ClassNK has decided to develop its own set of technical requirements related to strength assessments for bottom structures and fatigue strength assessments due to racking deformation.

As the development of technology requirements for strength assessments has completed, ClassNK has included the latest knowledge acquired through R&D into the guidelines and renamed them as “Guidelines for Vehicles Carrier Structures”.

The new guidelines are available to download free of charge via ClassNK’s website. They consist of “Guidelines for Direct Strength Analysis” which specify requirements related to the use of direct strength analysis to evaluate the structural arrangements and scantlings of the primary structural members of bottom structures in cargo hold areas, as well as “Guidelines for Racking Strength Assessment—Evaluation of Yielding Strength—” which outline requirements related to the use of direct strength analysis to evaluate the structural arrangements and scantlings of primary support members that support racking deformation in cargo hold areas.

ClassNK said it plans to update the guidelines upon the completion of further research on the requirements for fatigue strength assessments of racking deformation.

Source:marinelink

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