Worldwide Shipping Fleet Challenges

Fuel costs represent as much as 50 – 60% of total ship operating costs. For a lightly fouled medium sized container vessel used in Trans-Pacific trade with a container capacity of 7,750 TEUs (twenty foot equivalents), and with the cost of bunker fuel at circa $500 per ton (Ship & Bunker, 2020), steaming at 24 knots would lead to a fuel consumption of circa 209 tons per day (GTS, n.d).

A single 28-day round trip (25 days at sea) voyage for this one vessel would produce a fuel bill of approximately $2,600,000. It is understood that even lightly fouled vessels can consume considerably more fuel than clean hulls with no fouling (IMO, 2002).

It is well established that all ships when in-water have some degree of biofouling, even those which may have been recently cleaned or had a new application of an anti-fouling system. Studies have shown that the biofouling process begins within the first few hours of a ship’s immersion in water – especially warm waters.

Ships are often faced with delays entering and departing ports, due to operational issues and environmental restrictions such as neap tides. In such cases, shallow water and temperate environments can lead to accelerated fouling.

Hull fouling leads to significant increases in ship resistance whilst travelling through water severely impacting both fuel costs and emissions of air pollutants. Current in-water solutions require significant time in port or at anchor, intensive labour and only target spots of worst case fouling – in addition to being significantly more expensive for repeated annual cleaning. Dry-docking intervals for hull maintenance results in significant disruption and costs due to diversions to suitable facilities, long operating cycles and significant labour usage coupled with less time in revenue service for the vessel.

With just 5% of the world fleet of >100,000 vessels currently undertaking In Water Hull Cleaning (IWHC) annually, and a lack of commercialised technology targeting hull maintenance while vessels are underway, there is a need for a new kind of product which can prevent fouling on a preventative and proactive basis.