DNV is heavily involved in the business of ship repair and conversions in China, and at the DNV regional headquarters in Shanghai we meet DNV’s Richard Simpson, head of the ships in operations department.
“The expansion in this area has been very rapid over the past couple of years,” he says. “To us this has meant that the requirements for customer support in terms of design approvals, on site teams and advice to the yards have more or less ‘exploded’. Using the DNV global network for approvals in close proximity to the Chinese customers is an essential key to our success,” adds Simpson, who says that DNV is currently involved in some 28 conversion projects along the Chinese coastline. “We now have a specialised unit for conversions as a response to market needs.
“Of the more spectacular projects, eight tankers being converted into Heavy Lift Vessels stand out. Here the bow and stern of the vessels, including the machinery, have been kept while the midsection is brand new. These new semisubmersible heavy lift vessels will have no problems finding plenty of work in the future, with demand exceeding capacity for the time being,” says Simpson.
“A conversion from a single to a double hull actually extends the life of vessels which would otherwise have to be scrapped or taken out of service as tankers. This is one of the easier jobs to do, as the new hull is added to the inside of the vessel and – importantly – the vessel comes in to the yard as a tanker for oil and leaves the yard as the same type of vessel.
“Much more challenging is the conversion of a product tanker into a chemical carrier. The global demand for product carriers has fallen and the trend is to convert these into chemical carriers. From our point of view, this means that the vessel comes in as one type of vessel and, after the conversion, leaves as a very different type of vessel. This means all class certificates have to be reissued, as the vessel will have to comply with totally new requirements. We have also been engaged in converting single hull chemical carriers for Odfjell. These vessels would otherwise not be able to trade after new IMO rules which came into force in January 2007.
“The newest trend is to convert VLCCs into VLOCs. The conversion process is carefully monitored by us and the yard, as deflections in the hull must be kept under very tight control. The process is carefully calculated and the conversion sequence is crucial. The competence behind this process should not be underestimated and I personally find the challenges involved in this very inspiring in purely engineering terms,” concludes Simpson.