Dubai-based ship owner United Arab Chemical Carriers has specified the Hamworthy Moss technology for installation on board ten ships under construction in South Korea. The ten 45,000dwt IMO type 2 product and chemical carriers will be delivered by SLS Shipbuilding between January 2011 and June 2012.
“The contract, which was in excess of £6.0 million, was significant for an Inert Gas Systems contract” Morten Letnes, Marine Business Unit Director at Hamworthy Moss. “This has been a successful project, with invaluable support from Hamworthy’s sales offices in Dubai and Korea, enabling us to secure our largest single order for Nitrogen Generator Systems”
Each Nitrogen Generator will have a capacity of 3.750 Nm3/h at 95% purity. Nitrogen gas is distributed to cargo oil tanks and slop tanks. The generator will also supply nitrogen to the ballast water tanks for inerting and gas freeing.
UACC said that its latest ships had been designed for maximum operational flexibility. The 183m long, 32m wide vessels will feature 22 cargo tanks apiece, of up to 2,000m3 capacity each.
UACC Vice President - Technical, Johan Thuresson said: “It is fair to say that these ships will be our most sophisticated newbuildings to date. We have specified Hamworthy in the past as a supplier of engine room pumps and sewage systems, but this is the first time for us with their Nitrogen Generator System. We selected Hamworthy based on their global support network and the quality of equipment.”
Hamworthy is already well known for its inert gas systems and has over 1500 systems in its field. The latest Nitrogen Generator System is a compact, high efficiency system based on air separation, using hollow fibre membrane modules, which are either cabinet or skid mounted.
Its control system is based on a Programmable Logical Control (PLC) and features a touch screen type control panel. Several mimic flow diagrams are implemented as well as the controls required for safe operation with a minimum of operator supervision.
