USA-based ship tank coating manufacturer Advanced Polymer Coatings has won a new deal to supply two new chemical tankers being built in Turkey
Advanced Polymer Coatings (APC) global marine manager Captain Onur Yildirim said its Turkish division begins work this month applying APC’s MarineLINE coating system on the projects.
The newbuild vessels are 8,000-dwt Basaran Bayrak, a chemical and oil tanker being built for the Ceksan shipowner at its Ceksan shipyard in Tuzla and 6,000-dwt Sedat Basak, a tanker being built for Turkish shipowner Atako Shipping and its partner Nakkas Shipping at the Gisan shipyard in Tuzla.
Captain Yildirim said the projects will be led by its Turkish marine sales manager Koray Karagoz supported by APC’s 14-strong team at its Tuzla office as well as APC’s head office in Cleveland, Ohio.
“APC has been operating in Turkey since 2001 and we have an experienced talented team which have coated and repaired 450 different chemical tankers in Turkey,” he said.
He added, “APC now has around 80% of the Turkish tank coating market. It is one of our top export destinations and we look forward to undertaking these jobs. Each contract will see us coat the ships’ cargo tanks and slop tanks with MarineLINE along with application inspection, and full heat curing services.”
Captain Yildirim said APC won the latest deals due to having a committed long-term presence in Turkey combined with the quality of MarineLINE and its broad range of benefits.
“The low absorption characteristics and highly glossy surface of MarineLINE allow operators to reduce overall tank cleaning times, which in turn helps reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions associated with hot water production”, he said.
The latest Turkish jobs follow another new deal for APC with Chinese shipowner Shandong to supply a fleet of 50,000-dwt medium range tankers to be chartered by Shell as part of its Shell Project Solar programme.
KSS Line has applied Nippon Paint Marine’s FASTAR coating to the hulls of a pair of liquefied petroleum gas carriers (LPGCs), becoming the first South Korean shipowner to apply the novel nano-type antifouling paint to existing tonnage.
The gas and chemical carrier operator applied a FASTAR I system to the 78,000-m3 VLGC Gas Power during a scheduled drydocking in February at Sembcorp Marine’s Admiralty shipyard in Singapore’s Sembawang district.
The application following the coating on KSS Line’s 84,000-m3 capacity Gas Star, which was applied in December 2021 at the Yeosu Ocean shipyard in Gwangyang Bay, South Korea.
In both cases, FASTAR I replaced Nippon Paint Marine’s A-LF-Sea 150 product on the vessels’ bottoms and vertical sides, representing the first commercial reference for the new coating not only on a South Korean-owned ship but also a LPG carrier.
KSS Line Marine Affairs Division head Seo Young-Joon said, “We originally specified A-LF-Sea recoats for these vessels but when we heard about FASTAR’s short curing time and fuel-saving performance we decided to change the coating specification during their scheduled drydockings. Drying time was faster than we expected – a critical factor in a successful drydocking. After the Gas Star application, we found energy efficiency had improved so opted to apply the coating to Gas Power.”
With a 20% to 30% increase in drydockings worldwide over the past 12 months, largely due to shipowners installing systems capable of meeting new environmental regulations, the coatings company said FASTAR can support shipowners’ sustainability goals.
FASTAR is a two-coat, self-polishing copolymer antifouling paint that uses hydrophilic and hydrophobic nano-sized silyl acrylate components to precisely control the release of biocides – the active agents that target marine biofouling.
Nippon Paint Marine expects more vessels in KSS Line’s 31-strong fleet to adopt a FASTAR system at scheduled drydockings later this year.
Excluding these new applications, the marine coatings pioneer has to date supplied antifouling systems to the petrochemical carriers Duke Chemist, E Chemist, Falcon Chemist, and the gas carriers Gas Quantum, Gas Utopia and Gas Venus.
