Deltamarin to support construction of LNG fueled RoPax

JULY 6, 2017 — Turku, Finland, headquartered Deltamarin Ltd has signed contracts with Xiamen Shipbuilding Industry Co., Ltd (XSI) in southeast China, for engineering and construction support services for the LNG-fueled RoPax

Deltamarin awarded design contract for three containerships

MAY 29, 2017 — Turku, Finland, headquartered Deltamarin reports that Chinese shipbuilder Guangzhou Wenchong Shipyard has awarded it a design contract for the three container vessels ordered earlier this year by Iceland based

Green technologies: The road to faster adoption

Leading shipowners and operators, gas suppliers, ports, class societies, and technologists gathered last month in London to announce a new cross-industry initiative aimed at accelerating the adoption of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as a marine fuel. The initiative hopes to address the issues of LNG bunkering infrastructure, regulatory concerns, and the higher initial capital investment costs in building LNG-fueled vessels.

Called SEA/LNG, the initiative brings together participants from Carnival Corporation & plc, DNV GL, ENGIE, ENN, GE, GTT, Lloyd’s Register, Mitsubishi Corporation, NYK Line, Port of Rotterdam, Qatargas, Shell, TOTE Inc. and Wärtsilä.

The goal of the initiative explains TOTE Inc. Executive Vice President Peter Keller, who is serving as SEA\LNG’s Chairman, is to address “market barriers and help transform the use of LNG as a marine fuel into a global reality.”

When it comes to using LNG as a marine fuel, TOTE is all in. It’s committed about $500 million in capital investments to have its entire fleet to burn LNG. The U.S.-flag operator has built two 3,100 TEU LNG-fuelled containerships now in operation between the Port of Jacksonville, FL, and San Juan, PR, and is converting the two ORCA Class Roll-on/Roll-Off ships in its fleet to burn LNG. The first of those two is being converted at Singapore’s Keppel Shipyard this fall.

TOTE is not alone in adding dual-fuel and LNG-Ready tonnage to its oceangoing fleet in the U.S. Harvey Gulf International Marine, Crowley Maritime Corp., Matson Navigation, Kinder Morgan, and SEA VISTA/SEACOR all have vessels in operation or under construction that burn or could eventually burn LNG as a marine fuel. In all, there are 29 vessels that are designed or could be converted to burn LNG as shown in the accompanying table. This does not include inland and coastal vessels such as towboats or ferries.

The U.S. Maritime Administration, for example, is supporting the conversion of a towboat to burn LNG as fuel.

The use of LNG as a marine fuel has increased with Emission Control Areas (ECAs) coming into force in Northern Europe and North America under MARPOL Annex VI. LNG is relatively clean burning, containing virtually no sulfur content and it produces lower NOx and particulate matter in the combustion process than fuel oil and marine diesel oil.

A long-time, well-known proponent of LNG as a marine fuel, John Hatley, PE, Gas Initiatives Wärtsilä North America, sees gas as a compelling solution for box feeders, RO/RO vessels, ferries and cruise ships, product tankers, Great Lakes vessels, and ATBs on short coastal voyages that enter into ECAs.

LNG is therefore able to offer a fuel solution compliant with both current and anticipated future regulations.

The larger effect from Annex VI will come when the requirement to reduce sulfur content of marine fuels to 0.5% on a global basis effective 2020 or 2025 depending on the outcome of an IMO low sulfur fuel availability study to be completed in 2018. The issue for ship owners and operators is how to find alternatives to economically meet the low sulfur fuel mandate about to be imposed by MARPOL Annex VI.

However, while LNG is a competitive fuel relative to current alternatives, LNG infrastructure is needed in ports around the world to enable quick, safe and cost effective bunkering. In the U.S., the first LNG bunker transport barge with GTT Mark III Flex tank technology is under construction at Conrad Orange shipyard in Orange, TX, and expected to be delivered in early 2017. LNG bunkering infrastructure is far more advanced in Europe.

“Everybody is calling for alternatives to reduce environmental impacts says Philip Olivier, CEO of ENGIE Global LNG. “That’s why we have joined forces to actively promote LNG as a key fuel in maritime transport. LNG has the potential to take a 10% market share of global bunker demand by 2030. ENGIE will contribute to achieving this target.”

Tom Strang, Senior Vice President, Maritime Affairs, Carnival Corporation & plc, says, “By working together proactively across the whole marine LNG value chain we can make the transition to a lower emission marine sector a reality.”

Lauran Wetemans Shell’s general manager downstream LNG agrees. “To make the transition to LNG as a fuel happen it needs close collaboration with key players across the full value chain,” says, Wetemans. “SEA/LNG aims to promote the benefits and potential of LNG fuel, and create a level playing field for LNG with other fuels. It will complement the work being done by other organizations like the Society for Gas as a Marine Fuel.”

Leo Karistios, Gas Technology Lead, Lloyd’s Register, points out, “LNG fuelled shipping has mainly been for the visionaries and, until now, concentrated in specialist ship sectors: short sea shipping and ferries, mainly sailing between two fixed ports. We want to help drive the expansion of LNG as a marine fuel of choice, with not just more short sea and local ships burning gas, but also the deep sea trades.”

Timo Koponen, Vice President, Flow & Gas Solutions, Wärtsilä Marine Solutions, says his company will contribute “its vast experience and know-how in gas driven propulsion systems and the entire gas value chain” to the initiative. “By working together, we plan to overcome the challenges and speed the general acceptance of LNG. Having been a pioneer in the use of LNG as a marine fuel, and a developer of major technologies facilitating the adoption of LNG fuel, it is natural that Wärtsilä supports wholeheartedly the aims of the SEA/LNG coalition.”

Developing bulk carrier concept
Wärtsilä is also involved with an effort with class society ABS, Arista Shipping, Deltamarin, and GTT in the Project Forward joint development project (JDP) to develop a dry bulk carrier concept that employs LNG as fuel.

The goal is to develop a Kamsarmax bulk carrier design to be the first of this type suitable for worldwide services powered by LNG in compliance with the IMO’s Energy Efficiency Design Index 2025 standards, NOx Tier III and MARPOL Annex VI SOx emission levels. This landmark design will be the first LNG-fueled cargo ship capable of full-range operations.

“The long-term potential for LNG as a marine fuel is tremendous,” says ABS Vice President of Global Gas Solutions Patrick Janssens. “We see the near-term opportunities for larger vessels on fixed and known trade routes, but more opportunities will emerge as concepts mature and bunkering infrastructure expands. Environmental stewardship will continue to be a concern, and owners will be evaluating alternative fuel choices.”

“Project Forward represents a milestone for the shipping industry in bringing to the market a practical, achievable design for what are the workhorses of the shipping fleet,” says Arista Shipping Principal Alexander P. Panagopulos. “Our mission is to develop the next generation of energy efficient and environmentally friendly dry bulk cargo ships to be sustainable worldwide beyond 2030. It marks a number of ‘firsts’ and draws together the experience of a team of leaders in their field to make LNG powered shipping a reality on the high seas.”

Technical challenges in developing this design were considerable, as there is a need to carry a large volume of LNG (2,500 m3) – which corresponds to full-range operation and 40 days – in a type of ship where available space is limited and cargo space is at a premium.

ABS will provide Approval in Principle (AIP) for the concept, which is based on the highly optimized Deltamarin B.Delta 82 design, utilizing a GTT membrane LNG fuel tank. This design also could be applied to other bulk carrier sizes and serve as the basis for an LNG-fueled tanker. The concept features a Wärtsilä four-stroke, medium-speed engine without auxiliary generators, the first time this configuration has been applied to a vessel of this type, significantly simplifying the vessel’s engine room arrangement and contributing to lower capital expenditure.

Read more from our Green Technology & Sustainable Shipping section in our Digital Edition.

Project aims to bring LNG fueling into shipping mainstream

JUNE 7, 2016 — “The long-term potential for LNG as a marine fuel is tremendous,” says Patrick Janssens, Vice President of Global Gas Solutions at classification society ABS. “We see the near-term

Wartsila joins LNG-fueled bulker project

MAY 11, 2015 — Wärtsilä is joining Project Forward. Led by Athens-based Arista Shipping, the project aims to develop a design for a commercially feasible LNG fueled dry bulk carrier design that

Shipping’s space age future

 

Looking like a teaser for an upcoming Star Trek movie, a six-minute video posted by Rolls-Royce last month lays out its high-tech vision of unmanned cargo ships and the future of shipping.

At the heart of that vision is a sophisticated, cutting-edge, land-based control center with interactive smart screens, voice recognition systems, and 3D holographic images of the ship and its equipment. An officer sits in a command chair before the “OX global wall,” which provides a worldwide overview of shipping traffic. Flying drones launched from the unmanned ship are the operator’s eyes in the sky to monitor navigation, security, weather and inspect the ship itself.

In the video, Rolls-Royce envisions a small crew of 7 to 14 people that will monitor and control the operation of a fleet of vessels across the world.

Last year, Rolls-Royce announced it would lead the Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications Initiative—a new EURO6.6 million project to explore, develop and design autonomous ships.

 

Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, is providing the funding for the project, which will run until the end of 2017.

 

The Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications Initiative (AAWAI) brings together expertise from academia and industry. The participants include Finnish academic researchers from Tampere University of Technology, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Åbo Akademi University, Aalto University, and the University of Turku. Besides Rolls-Royce, industry participants include NAPA, Deltamarin, DNV GL and Inmarsat.

Iiro Lindborg, Rolls-Royce’s General Manager, Remote & Autonomous Operations, Ship Intelligence, says, “unmanned and remote-controlled transportation systems will become a common feature of human life. They offer unprecedented flexibility and operational efficiency.” Lindborg says the research “aims to understand the human factors involved in monitoring and operating ships remotely. It identifies ways crews ashore can use tools to get a realistic feel for what is happening at sea.”

The video is the final stage of research that will inform the design and construction of a project demonstrator before the end of this decade.

An effective remote operations center is essential to the company’s plans to develop autonomous and remote controlled vessels.

Eija Kaasinen, Principal Scientist at VTT Technical Research Center of Finland Ltd., points out that unmanned ships doesn’t take humans out of the picture totally. “Unmanned ships need to be monitored and controlled and this will require entirely new kinds of work roles, tasks, tools and environments. The future shore control center concept has been designed by emphasizing the user experience of the human operators. By focusing on the operators’ point of view, it is possible to introduce meaningful, pleasurable and engaging new roles for the ships’ shore control center professionals.”

The research was undertaken by VTT and University of Tampere research centre TAUCHI (Tampere Unit for Computer Human Interaction) in collaboration with Rolls-Royce. It explored the lessons learned from other industries where remote operation is commonplace, such as aviation, energy, defense, and space exploration.

It uses the InnoLeap approach, a VTT and Rolls-Royce-developed initiative for concept design and presentation of academic studies in a graphic format that is based on trend and user studies, co-innovation, scenario stories and visualizations.

On April 5, in Helsinki, Finland, Rolls-Royce will reveal separate research findings, which it believes will set the direction for the development of remote and autonomous shipping.

Remote and autonomous ships are one of three elements of the company’s Ship Intelligence strategy, a portfolio of products and services – comprising health management solutions, optimization and decision support, and remote and autonomous operations – which intended to enable customers to transform their operations by harnessing the power of big data.

Rauli Hulkkonen, Tekes, Chief Advisor, thinks the project is a “fantastic opportunity to establish the Finnish maritime cluster as the world leader in maritime remote control technology.”

 

Esa Jokioinen, Head of Rolls-Royce’s Blue Ocean Team, says, “We are excited to be taking the first concrete steps towards making remote controlled and autonomous ship applications a reality.”

 

The Rolls-Royce Blue Ocean team is responsible for R&D of future maritime technologies.

Rolls-Royce is not alone in investigating the feasibility of unmanned ships. The European Commission has just completed work on project MUNIN (Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks) to develop concepts for unmanned ships. The EURO3.8 million MUNIN project focused on a dry bulk carrier concept, which typically carry cargo point-to-point on long, uninterrupted deep-sea voyages.

The goal of the projects is to reduce crew costs, lower environmental impact, and reduce the number of collisions. Human error plays a role in about 80 percent of maritime accidents.

MUNIN says that the issues of cyber attacks and pirates are a cause for concern. “However, software systems as well as ships can be designed and built providing a very high resilience against digital and physical attacks.”

HUNTING SUBS BY DRONE SHIP
Drones have been used effectively on the military side for years for surveillance, reconnaissance, and military strikes. Last month, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) reported that its Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program has designed, developed and constructed an entirely new class of ocean-going vessel—one intended to traverse thousands of kilometers over the open seas for months at a time, all without a single crew member aboard.

The ACTUV technology demonstration vessel was recently transferred to water at shipbuilder Vigor Industrial, Portland, OR, and conducted speed tests in which it reached a top speed of 27 knots (31 mph/50 kph).

The ACTUV would be used to track quiet diesel-electric submarines.

The vessel is scheduled to be christened on April 7, 2016, with open-water testing planned to begin in summer 2016 off the California coast.

 

 

LNG fueled bunkers to have MacGregor equipment

MARCH 30, 2016 — Cargotec subsidiary MacGregor is to deliver hatch covers, cranes, deck machinery and steering gear to the two new 25,600 dwt dual-fueled handysize bulk carriers ordered last November by

Finnish owner orders first LNG-fueled handysize bulkers

ESL Shipping and Swedish steel company SSAB have signed a long-term frame agreement covering SSAB’s inbound raw material sea transports within the Baltic Sea and from the North Sea. The purpose of the agreement is to enable mutual, long-term gains in efficiency and to reduce overall logistics costs, while simultaneously making raw material logistics as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible. At present, the aggregated sea transport volume covered by the agreement is estimated to be 6–7 million tons annually.

 

The two ice-class 1A ships being built as a result of the agreement will be the first LNG-fueled large bulk carriers in the world. CO2 emissions per ton of cargo transported will be reduced by more than 50% in comparison to present vessels.

“This new agreement is a solid example of SSAB’s sustainability strategy in action,” says Per Bondemark, Chief Procurement Officer at SSAB.

“ESL Shipping’s new customer agreement running for several years will secure growing freight volumes, and the new investments to be implemented will release old vessel stock for other transport needs. Besides their environmental benefits, the cost savings provided by the new technology will also allow better profitability,” says Aki Ojanen, Chairman of the Board of ESL Shipping and CEO of its parent Aspo Group.

The two new vessels will be built at the Qingshan Shipyard of Sinotrans & CSC SBICO in China and will start operating in the Baltic
in early 2018. The total value of the investment is approximately EUR 60 million. The investment cash flow will be divided progressively between 2015 and 2018.

ESL Shipping has worked in close cooperation with Finnish designer Deltamarin on the ship design and the ships have been tailored to customer needs with special attention given to the efficiency of cargo handling and cargo hold arrangements.

Deltamarin has performed the full concept and contract design of the ships for ESL and has a contract with the shipbuilder covering basic and detail design, procurement handling and site assistance for the two vessels based on Deltamarin’s B.Delta26LNG design.

The LNG-fueled B.Delta26LNG bulk carrier is equipped with both dual-fuel main and auxiliary machinery. The ship has a type C LNG tank of approximately 400 cu.m capacity.

The B.Delta26LNG also exhibits very efficient operation in ice class conditions, far surpassing any other similar ships trading in such conditions. Extensive model tests have been performed for both open water, at SSPA in Sweden, and Ice Class 1A operations, at Aker Arctic Technology in Finland.

The vessels will be classified according to DNV GL rules.

The B.Delta26LNG has a shallow draft of max. 10 m, length overall of 160 m, breadth of 26 m and maximum capacity of 25,600 tonnes deadweight.

Deltamarin and Aker Arctic develop Arctic Aframax design

The concept ship combines Deltamarin’s expertise in affordable, energy efficient cargo vessels with Aker Arctic’s arctic vessel expertise to deliver cost efficient and reliable tanker operation both in open water and in ice.

The Arctic Aframax tanker is intended for crude oil and oil product transports. It is strengthened to ice class PC5 level (equals approximately Russian Maritime Register of Shipping category ARC6) and is capable of continuously breaking thicker than one-meter level ice.

It can operate on the Northern Sea Route during the extended summer months, and with assistance even longer. During the winter months the vessel can operate in other sub-arctic sea areas such as the Baltic Sea or Sakhalin.
Deltamarin’s experience in designing cost efficient cargo vessels with track record of hundreds of contracted vessels is utilized in minimizing the newbuilding and operating costs.

According to Deltamarin’s Director of Ship Design, Markku Miinala, and Aker Arctic’s Project Manager, Riku Kiili, “the design integrates optimized ice breaking and open water performance as well as the latest energy efficiency features applied together with the Polar Code requirements. This unique combination results in an affordable building and improved transport economy by cost efficient operation. The design can be fine-tuned according to the customer’s wishes.”

The bow and hull shape of the vessel combine the optimum balance of open water performance with icebreaking capabilities. The specially designed hull strengthening improves safety in operations in the arctic waters. The hull is equipped with an Ice Load Monitoring System, which measures ice loads from the hull and provides online support to the officers ensuring safe operations. The system will also help the shipowner in the long term by analyzing the data and creating information for the optimal operations.  The emphasis has also been on winterization for cold climates in all aspects of the concept design.

The vessel is equipped with two CP-propellers and shaft lines directly coupled with slow speed diesel engines. The vessel can also be fitted to run on LNG with dual fuel engines. Further there is a possibility for two bow thrusters and shaft PTO/PTI (Power Take Off / Power Take In) systems.  A special focus has been on developing an improved command bridge, where the new Aker Arctic ARC Bridge Concept was used. The visibility from the bridge is excellent in all directions and good ergonomics including access and passages to command posts is created.

Arctic Aframax 118,000 DWT Crude Oil Carrier
Main Dimensions:

Hull and Performance:    

New container feeder design from Deltamarin

AUGUST 14, 2015—Finnish naval architectural and marine engineering firm Deltamarin Ltd. has unveiled the A.Delta2300, the first in a series of container feeder vessel designs that offer “best-in-class” cargo capacity, flexibility and

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