As economies around the world are picking up again and projects that were put on hold during the recession are back on the table, we asked several leading fender manufacturers how they had fared in 2010. “The year 2010 was a challenging one for UAE-based Ocean Rubber, as it was for most of the industries all around the world,” Sajjad Ahmed, Product Manager at Ocean Rubber Factory told WPD. “However, our strategy of keeping prices down with lesser margins helped us to pass the year by keeping our 600+ work force busy with orders. Our fender systems division was exceptionally busy with small to medium-scale projects involving fenders for new build vessels, replacements, as well as fenders for ports and offshore platforms. We completed manufacture and supply of a cone fender system with panels for a major African seaport within schedule, supply of arch fenders for a Naval Jetty in Oman, various boat landing fenders for oil & gas companies in the Ukraine and other central Asian countries.” We received a similar response from Jan Mursch, Managing Director at FenderTeam, Germany. He reports that 2010 as a business year was “good!” Together with its partner company Japan-based Shibata – Fenderteam were able to increase their global market share significantly. In April 2010 the company opened an office in the US, covering North and South America. “Further expansion of our agent network with new agents in Europe, Africa, North and South America continued,” said Mursch. For UK-based QuayQuip their objective was to position themselves at the high end of the market before year end. “To achieve this we had to lift QuayQuip above the ‘bunfight’ between traditional rubber suppliers and traders in an already overcrowded commodity fender market that offers low prices and suspect quality,” a spokesperson for QuayQuip told WPD. “We found our niche by combining advanced fender systems with marine structures of our own design and much higher standards of safety and quality.”
A matter of choice
The manufacturers we approached were eager to tell us what makes their fenders a compelling choice – why they think future clients should turn to them rather then the competition. “While many fender suppliers are merely trading low quality imitation products, we are committed to ensuring that our in-house R&D and manufacturing facilities are developing only the best and most innovative berthing, docking and mooring solutions,” said Richard Hepworth, Managing Director, Trelleborg Marine Syatems, Singapore. “We continue to invest heavily, not only in product design, but also in compound and material development.” Ocean Rubber’s Ahmed says the company is considered to be the premier industrial rubber manufacturer and service provider in the Middle East. “We serve the marine, oil & gas, and construction industry, providing ready solutions as well as designed products using rubber as the engineering material.” The company is ISO 9001:2008 certified, with almost all major laboratory, process and product testing equipment, and their dedicated quality control team strives to ensure the products are manufactured to meet the specifications. “With almost all components of the fender system either manufactured in-house, a detailed quality control check with the ease of inspecting all the components and the complete fender system under one roof has been well accepted by our clients,” Ahmed concludes. QuayQuip has the largest range of PIANC 2002/ ASTM F-2192-05 Type Approved fenders. “We were the first manufacturer to be awarded both approvals. Approval extends to twin, back-to-back cone fenders – another first,” said QuayQuips’ spokesperson. “Clients quickly learned the benefits of carefully designed, engineered fender systems, from lower outlay on the initial works, to extended service life at a lower overall cost. Finite Element analysis is used at every step in the design of our engineered fender systems and marine structures.” As a result, the company makes extensive use of Solid Modelling design software on every project, including vessels and structures for a complete ‘port fit’ – 3D visualisation technology is used to demonstrate designs to customers. “QuayQuip have made smarter berth upgrades possible through better integration of new units to the existing berth structures.” Mursch points out that Fenderteam are ‘close’ to their customers with local agents and local offices. “The fact that our fender design is done internally by high skilled engineers and fully meet the requirements of our clients and not simply offering standard of the shelf designs,” he added. “We (Fenderteam) offer a high quality product at a fair price and fast service. FenderTeam are proud of the fact that their products (for example the steel panels and accessories) are still made in Germany.
Fender innovations
In the many discussions we have on a regular basis with port engineers there is often an interest in what a fender manufacturer has done in the past. In other words, how creative the fender designer was in approaching certain issues. How they approached the issues and found a [new] solution to the problem is often the result of understanding the problem faced by the port engineer. Hepworth hit the nail on the head when we asked the manufacturers if they can provide us with information on innovative ideas or solutions in fender design. “The main area of innovation or evolution in fender design has been in the actual size. As containers and vessels become larger, along with more arduous operating conditions, there is a clear trend towards enlarged fenders. We (Trelleborg) are very much at the forefront of responding to that development, which relies not only on more rubber, but also steel components to carry the need for increased performance,” he told World Port Development. “Coupled with this, our docking and mooring range is also moving more and more towards fully integrated solutions, including the monitoring of environmental factors such as waves, wind and currents. This is very much geared towards enhancing safety and lowering ports’ exposure to risk.” QuayQuip’s busy R&D programme brought many developments to the market in 2010, including integrated corner protecti
on systems, ‘pivot fenders’, cone fender systems with built-in measures to combat water filling issues, systems designed for simple ‘drop-into-place’ installation, bolt-free couplings, PE fixing details with 10 times the strength and double the wear allowance of existing studs and warping systems on floating structures. FenderTeam developed a special submarine fender system for the latest generation of sub-marines for the German Navy. This system has been installed in 2010 and is completely fulfilling the customers’ expectations.
Fender hot spots
According to Mursch, FenderTeam will find new opportunities in the future both on the African Continent and South America to further grow their business. His views are shared by Ahmed, who is confident that Ocean Rubber can increase their clientele with new markets in the Middle East, Africa and CIS countries.
Hepworth points out that as vessel sizes continue to increase we [Trelleborg] are seeing on-going port development on a global scale to ensure ports are sufficiently equipped to accommodate larger vessel sizes. “However, port development and economic growth in the eastern hemisphere in particular, is certainly high,” points out Hepworth.
Orders update
Trelleborg Marine Systems has supplied Qatargas with three of its parallel motion fender systems for a fast-track project. The installation of the fenders was completed in just four days. Carried out with specialist oil and gas contractor, Qatar Engineering and Construction Company (Q-Con), the installation included two sets of dual SCN1000 cones behind each Parallel Motion Fender Structure. The project has enabled the global LNG supplier to upgrade an existing berthing structure, originally designed for vessels with a displacement of around 110,000 tonnes, to facilitate berthing of larger Q-Flex vessels with a displacement of about 150,000 tonnes. Trelleborg’s parallel motion fender system was specified as it complemented the design of the existing jetty, raising its energy absorbency capacity and enabling it to facilitate the berthing of a much larger vessel, with increased weight. “The existing jetties weren’t originally designed to take the berthing energy and related reaction forces associated with the larger Q-Flex vessel,” Paul Welling, General Manager, Trelleborg Marine Systems FZE, explained. “We recommended the parallel motion fender system as it can offer 60% greater force absorbency than a conventional fender without raising the reaction force above the allowable level, which meant that the existing dock could be used, for a much heavier vessel.”
Fender team reports that last year, the company worked on the Vale import and export bulk and aggregate jetties at Sohar, Oman, installing 16 nos CSS 3000 fenders and 45 nos SPC 2000 fenders. According to Mursch, the project was one of the largest fender projects executed in 2010 worldwide with individual fender system weighing in at nearly 40 tonnes per system. The company has also won a contract to install 200 fenders for the latest generation container berth (once completed) at the Maasvlakte II in Rotterdam, the Netherlands – currently one of the largest new port construction sites in Europe. At the Eemshaven, also in the Netherlands, Fenderteam received an order for 120 fenders for the Wilheminahaven. Partner Shibata won the contract to install over 180 fenders at the container terminal in Khalifa Port, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The steel panels are currently being manufactured in Germany by FenderTeam.
Orders in 2010 highlighted by QuayQuip include a completed fender system installation for an LNG supply berth on Gorgon Island, including a full Inspection and Test Plan. They also installed over 100 parallel movement and conventional fender systems, as well as donut fenders, bridge protection fenders and integrated floating bollard systems for a Resource Recovery Facility in London, UK. More recent orders include a caisson-mounted ‘pivot fender’ system designed for rapid installation directly from the delivery vessel. The system is installed on an iron ore berth in Cape Preston. In Marampa, Sierra Leone, the company was awarded a contract for an automated, floating barge berth including a floating structure equipped with a complete barge warping system. It was also awarded a contract for a complete dockyard, including integrated corner protection systems in Simonstown, South Africa.
Box story
Maritime International
Last year, US-based Maritime International completed a project for Vopak. Back in 2009, Vopak conducted a customer satisfaction survey at their Deer Park facility and identified waiting times as an area that needed improvement. In the short term Vopak alleviated this issue with more efficient planning and pre-berthing preparation, but to achieve their long term goals, Vopak needed a more effective solution. Ship Dock #3 would be expanded and enhanced by constructing two extensions to the existing ship dock. The company partnered with engineering firm Halcrow to design the project and Orion Construction was selected as the contractor. Construction could only be conducted during specific plant shut-downs, so schedules were very important. Maritime International provided the marine fenders for the project. Three different cell-type panel systems were designed, each mounting to different structures.
Donut Fenders were also utilised. As per the project requirements, Maritime International conducted tests on the donut fenders at their corporate headquarters.