THE ECHO - Ferrostaal

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projects & contracting
SHIPBUILDING
SAFETY ON THE HIGH SEAS
Major oil disasters like the sinking of the “Prestige” in 2002, which leaked some 64,000 tonnes of oil off the Spanish coast, have led
to a tightening of safety measures at sea. For example, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations agency, has
intensified its regulations and shortened the phase-out period for single-hull tankers. Specifically, it intends to ban the use of singlehull
tankers for the transportation of oil products as of 2015 and to monitor seafaring ships of this type more closely until then.
Over the next seven years, about 2,000 outdated oil and chemical
tankers are to be replaced. More than 1,000 tankers with a load
capacity of between 5,000 and 10,000 tdw (tons dead weight)
sailed the high seas in 2003. By 2015, single-hull tankers of this
size will be taken off the market. They will be replaced by doublehull
tankers like the SCOT series tankers built on behalf of MAN
Ferrostaal.
In the last four years, MAN Ferrostaal has handed over eight SCOT
8000 tankers to Wappen-Reederei and repeat orders have been
placed for four more. The tanker design was developed by the
Hamburg shipbuilder Günther Kordts, founder of Wappen-
Reederei, in collaboration with the Lindenau shipyard in Kiel and
MAN Ferrostaal.
The main impetus behind the idea was the increased threat to the
environment posed by single-hull tankers and single-screw vessels.
The team, led by Günther Kordts, designed a tanker for transporting
products and chemicals that guarantees maximum safety and
a very low probability of failure. The double hull, which also