PaxOcean Zhoushan yard has recently completed the lifting of scrubber funnel for 400,000DWT VLOC Sea Maranhao, which is the world’s first 400,000DWT VLOC scrubber retrofit project.
Sea Maranhao was built in 2013, owned by Pan Ocean, Korea which measures 361m in length, 65m in breadth, 30.5m in depth. It is one of the world’s largest ore carriers and the world’s first VLOC scheduled for scrubber retrofit as well.
The vessel originally use high-sulfur fuel oil which contains 3.5% sulfur, and the scrubber unit to be installed is approximately 16m in height, 8m in diameter and 250T in weight. This project faced many challenges in technical, tight schedule, cross operations, high accuracy etc. PaxOcean Zhoushan project team had many rounds of discussion with the owner, design company, equipment manufacturer to improve the retrofit workmanship and technology. The team has completed the lifting of the funnel structure successfully within 3 days. At present, 55% of the project has been completed, remaining work which include unit installation and commissioning will be completed in about 30 days, 6 days ahead the original schedule.
A growing number of ship owners are adopting scrubbers’ retrofit with the implementation of environmental regulations such as the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) new 0.5% global sulphur cap on fuel content effective from 1 January 2020. PaxOcean Zhoushan had seized this opportunity to promote and expand the business in this aspect to support its further developments in the maritime industry. After signing her first 8 VLOCs scrubber retrofit project in Oct 2018, PaxOcean Zhoushan has secured more than 40 scrubber retrofit orders including twelve 400,000 DWT VLOCs.
Earlier in March this year, PaxOcean Pertama yard in Batam had delivered the first scrubber retrofit installation for 83,500-dwt bulker Ikan Bawal, operated by Pacific Carriers and achieve completion in under 20 days.
About PaxOcean
A subsidiary of Kuok Singapore Limited, PaxOcean owns and operates 6 shipyards located in Singapore, China and Indonesia. First established in 2007 in Singapore, PaxOcean offers a wide range of services covering offshore engineering, rig building, ship and rig repair, maintenance and conversion.
For more information, visit us at www.paxocean.com
