Every Bit of Time Used to Save Money for the Ship Owner

Date: 2009-5-6

The oil tanker DD VIGOR entered COSCO Guangdong Shipyard in February for steel renewals and painting. Since an inspection of the proposed work locations was required prior to commencement of the work, the ship repair manager arranged for the project team to carry out the inspection and staging erection simultaneously, thus saving considerable time.

In the No. 5 oil tank, most of the hopper tank sloping plating, the double bottom frames and the longitudinal bulkhead, as well as 60% of the forward engine room bulkhead, needed to be renewed. This meant 7 oil tanks, 2 slop tanks and the front of the engine room had to be cleaned. Scaling the pipelines and the labels brought big risks to the safety control. Since some repair work, such as blasting, painting, renewal and testing of waste pipe and blast pipe and the renewal of about 300 pipes in the engine room, would be carried out together, the ship repair managers made a specific working schedule, to carry out the steel work during the daytime, and to carry out scaling and coating at night, to avoid potential safety risks.

To enable work to be carried out in No.5 oil tank, all the oil left in the tank needed to be transferred. Working overtime during the evening and late at night, when the steel work was stopped, the repair team quickly cleaned the other two oil tanks so that they were ready for the ship owner to transfer oil from No.5 oil tank. This is only one example of many things the repair team did to save every little cost for the ship owner.

The weather in spring is changeable, which can cause paint schedule chaos. By closely monitoring the weather, the painting team from the coating workshop ensured they lost no time and were able to manage an effective painting schedule.

In the middle of March, the DD VIGOR set sail on time. Just before she sailed, the owner¡¯s representatives highly praised COSCO Guangdong Shipyard for saving cost for the customer in such a severe market

COSCO Shipyard