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Chemical Tanker Xerox
Chemical Tanker Xerox
I wish if I could tell you that if you did this particular thing your
tanks will be ready for methanol standard.
The reality is that you can’t rely on one technique to clean your
tanks after Vegetable oil.
But positive thing is that there are few principles that we need
to follow to make the tank cleaning much easier and less
troublesome.
Let us discus
The first and foremost, we must know the type of palm oil that
we had in the tanks. This is important because the tank
cleaning method would depend on that.
If we make a mistake in this, we can never be able to clean the
tanks to methanol standard. Never!!!
Dry
Semi-dry
Non-dry
The question is, how to find which category palm oil loaded on
your vessel falls into. Tank cleaning software (provided on board
by of the chemical tanker operators) helps in that.
Sunflower oil
Palm Stearin
And we want to check the type of Veg oil for “Sunflower oil”.
Open Milbros on the computer.
It will lead you to the initial screen.
This may look to be a small step but it really helps in a big way.
After few hours when we take out the shirts, water in which of
the bucket you would expect to be cleaner?
If the bulkhead itself is cold or has the ballast on the other side
of the bulkhead, the cleaning will not be effective.
Use of chemicals
While high pressure and higher temperatures will do most of
the job, cleaning to wall wash standard would still most likely
require the use of chemical re-circulation in the tanks.
Check if the chemical you have planned to use are in this list.
You may need to have chemicals to remove odor from the tanks
or color from the samples.
This may in a way remove some load from the chief officer.
Then the quantity of Caretank Eco for one tank would be 3000 x
0.5/100 = 15 Liters.
Chemical Re-circulation
If you use sea water and keep the steam in heating coils on,
there are chances of hard solid salt deposits on the entire
heating coils of the tanks.
We can just use the fresh water to make the chemical solution
to avoid any of these solutions.
But sometimes we are short of fresh water and we need to use
sea water for making the chemical solution.
In that case, there are few things you can do to avoid this.
Second, rinse the tank with fresh water for 5-10 minutes
immediately after chemical recirculation.
Conclusion
And if you have to clean these tanks to load wall wash cargo,
the task becomes even more difficult.
But this difficult task can become easy to a great extent if few
simple principles of tank cleaning are followed.
It takes months and years of working on chemical tanker to get used to its uniques operations.
IHS FairPlay expects chemical cargo demand forecast to surge by 2020. Radiant insight INC has said
recently that chemical tanker market size will be worth $2.23 Trillion by 2020.
All these forecasts and trends show that there will be huge demand for chemical tanker officers on
these ships. Many shore management will be forced to shift officers from other ships to chemical
tankers.
But performing each task on chemical tanker without earlier experience on these can be difficult. One
such task is the stowage of the cargo on chemical tankers.
This guide aims to help officers with comparatively lesser experience on chemical tankers. However, this
can also be used by experienced officers to help them refresh their memory.
Let’s begin.
Receiving voyage orders
As is the case with other ships, on chemical tankers some operators will make the stowage plan and send
you for verification. Others will send the cargo list for loading and would expect you to stow each cargo
and send them the stowage plan.
In both the case we need to check the list, trim and stability criteria for each leg of the voyage. This is no
brainer as we do same on all type of ships. But there are few things specific to chemical tankers that we
need to check while planning the stowage.
Exclusive Bonus: Download this simple checklist for stowage planning on chemical tanker
There are steps that we need to follow while preparing the stowage plan on chemical tanker. If you have
been sailing on chemical tanker for some time now, these might come naturally to you. But for the first
timers or first time mates, these need to be followed religiously.
Acetic acid
TDI
Methanol
We need to know if we can load these chemicals. Let us go step by step to know if we can load these
cargoes.
One chemical can have many trade names. To know if we can load a cargo or not, we need to know its
proper shipping name listed in IBC code.
Certificate of fitness lists all the cargoes that a vessel is fit to load. The name of the cargoes in the COF
are proper shipping names (IBC name) and not trade names.
So if the charterer has given you trade names, you first need proper shipping name of such cargoes. For
example in the cargoes above, methanol is a trade name. Proper shipping name of Methanol is methyl
alcohol.
Just go to IBC code chapter 17. See if you can find that cargo. If it is there, then it is proper
shipping name. If it isn’t there in chapter 17, then it is a trade name.
If we just have the trade name of the cargo, how can we know its IBC name ? There are 3 ways that I can
think of.
First, you can go to chapter 19 of the IBC code and see if you can find your cargo name there. If you can,
then it will give you the proper shipping name (IBC name) in the next column.
Second, you can go to tank cleaning guide software such as Miracle and Milbros. This software has more
or less become a necessity to have on all chemical tankers. More often than not you will find one of
these software on chemical tanker. So for example, if you open milbros, go to commodities.
In the search option, you can type in the name of the cargo and then choose from the list.
This will give you the product name (IBC name) of the cargo you entered.
In fact, if you go to the synonyms section it will give all the names this cargo is known as.
Third way to know the IBC name of cargo is by just asking your operator or charterers. Knowing the
proper shipping name of cargo being loaded is very important.
Now that we know the proper shipping name of the cargo, go to cargo list of the COF and check if your
cargo appears in the list.
The cargoes in the COF are listed in alphabatical orders. Let’s check if these cargoes appear in the COF of
a real ship.
Acetic acid does not appear in the COF of this ship. So this ship cannot load this cargo.
Methyl Alcohol appears in the list and we can load this cargo too.
In the same way we can check for Toluene Diisocyanate and Palm fatty acid distillate.
The certificate of fitness does not take into account the coating of the tank. Even if we are allowed to
load a particular cargo, we need to check if the coating of the tank is suitable for the cargo to avoid the
damage to the cargo coating.
There are number of coating that the cargo tanks of a chemical tanker can have.
Stainless steel
Epoxy
Zinc silicate
Marine Line
Rubber
These are the few of the most popular coatings of cargo tanks on chemical tanker.
If the tanks are stainless steel coated then you do not need to worry about the coating.
The coating manual will have the resistant list of all the chemical cargoes. Each cargo will have either of
these atleast these three options
cargo is acceptable
Now lets see the coating manual of this ship. Let us look for cargo “TDI” and “Palm fatty acid Distillates”
to see if the coating is resistant to this cargo.
As we can see TDI can be loaded without any restrictions.
For Palm Fatty acid Distillate, you can see above that we can load this but it has a notation no 2. We need
to look at the coating manual for the explanation note of this.
For example for this cargo, it meant that fatty acid content of the cargo should not be more than 10%. In
this case we need to inform charterers about this. Charterers will get this confirmed from the shipper.
Before their written confirmation of the fatty acid content is received, you should not load this cargo.
While planning a stowage chief officer must check if the ship has the capability to heat the cargo to that
extent.
If the vessel is not capable of heating to that extent, this cargo should not be loaded.
Even when the ship is designed to load a particular chemical, each chemical can have its own
requirement.
While each of this source can have some overlapping requirements, it is important to go through each
such sources.
Chapter 17 of the IBC code is the best way to start with finding the special requirements for a cargo.
Let us discuss some of the requirements you should check for each cargo
a. Safety equipments
Chapter 14 of the IBC code lists the safety equipment requirements with respect to chemicals.
For example, the ships carrying cargoes for which 15.12, 15.12.1 or 15.12.3 is listed in column O of
chapter 17 should have 3 IBC sets which contains
Chemical Suits
Another requirement as per chapter 14.3 is to have ELSA for every person onboard for the cargoes that
have “yes” marked in column n of chapter 17.
While planning the stowage, Chief officer need to keep in mind if these equipments are available. If not
then he should inform to the company immediately.
b. Drager tubes
To be safe on chemical tankers, it is important to measure the presence of toxic gas in the area accessed
by the crew. Each cargo can release a different toxic gas and as such need equipment to measure it.
Drager and Gastec are two of such equipments that mesures toxic gas concentration. The Drager and
Gastec have pump that uses tubes to measure toxic gases. Each type of toxic gas has its own tube.
Before loading the cargo, chief officer must ensure that he has drager (or Gastec) tubes for the toxic
vapours that require measuring.
But not all cargoes are toxic and not all cargoes have the drager tubes available. To check this, again you
can use Milbros or Miracle software.
In the Milbros software, search for the commodity and go to Safety/MSDS section. You can find the
information regarding Drager and Gastec tubes applicable for that cargo.
c) PV Valves
There has been a new requirement for the PV valves on chemical tankers. Check if in chapter 17 of IBC
code, the column i” shows IIB requirement for the cargo. If yes, vessel need to have new type of PV
valves which are MSC/Circ.677 IIB compliant.
So you have checked and found that you can load the intended cargoes. You have also ensured that you
have all the required safety equipments on board. Now the time is to make the stowage plan. There are
number of things that you need to keep in mind while planning the stowage. Let us see each of it.
a) Cargo compatibility
Some chemicals react with each other. We call these incompatible chemicals. These chemicals cannot be
stowed adjacent to each other. This be because of the simple reason that if there is a crack in the
common bulkhead, it can lead to disastrous situation.
For example any acid cargo cannot be stored next to bases like Caustic soda solution.
Most common method of checking if two cargoes are compatible or not is the compatibility chart from
US coast gaurd. USCG has released full guidelines on compatibility of chemical cargoes which if you like
you can download by clicking here.
Bottom line that you need to keep in mind is not to stow any incompatible cargoes together.
b) Cargo density
Cargo density of the chemicals loaded on chemical tanker can vary drastically. Once you may be asked to
load a cargo of density as low as 0.7 and then that which have density as high as 1.9.
Chief officer must know what is the allowed cargo density for the vessel. You can find this information in
vessel’s “Procedure and arrangement manual”.
For example let us assume that the allowed maximum density is 1.025. If we need to load a cargo that
has a density more than 1.025, we need to load the quantity that does not exceed the load density of
the cargo tank.
For example, let us say that a cargo tank has total volume of 3000 M3 and maximum allowed load
density of 1.025. This tank can load a total of 3075 MT (3000 x 1.025) of cargo. Now if we need to load a
cargo with density 1.5, we can only load 2050 m3 ( 3075 / 1.5) volume in that. The whole idea is not to
exceed total weight of 3075 MT in this case.
Bottom line, keep in mind the allowed load density of your tanks while planning stowage.
Some cargoes have restriction of maximum adjacent temperature that you can have. For example we
cannot load a polymerising cargo such as Styrene monomer adjacent to a heated cargo such as palm oil.
These are the cargoes for which chapter 16.6 of IBC code applies. If in column o of the chapter 17 IBC
code mentions 16.6, these restriction would apply to that cargo.
Apart from polymerising cargoes, some cargoes can become off-spec if it is loaded adjacent to a high
temperature cargo. IBC code does not take into account the quality of the cargo. So if any cargo has any
restriction regarding adjacent temperature, the charterers need to advise in their voyage instructions.
You can also find a fair idea from the Milbros/Miracle software.
If Milbros software mentions these restrictions but your voyage instructions don’t, then you may need to
clarify from the charterer regarding any of such limitations.
Bottom line, do not stow a heat sensitive cargo adjacent to the heated cargo.
While we have to check the stability of every ship we work on but there is something more with
chemical tankers.
For example I have worked on chemical tanker with 39 cargo tanks carrying 20 grades of cargo at a time.
Some people work on chemical tankers with as many as 50 cargo tanks.
This makes the satisfying of intact stability, strength, damage stability and drafts and trim requirements
a challenge for chief officer.
And there is no other way than checking each leg on the loadicator. This off course takes a lot of time.
Charterers at times may want you to send the stowage plan in seconds. But you have a responsibility
that a person sitting on other end may not be able to fathom.
Bottom line is you should make it quick if the stowage plan is urgently required but not before checking
each leg on the loadicator.
Conclusion
Cargo stowage planning on chemical tanker is not like other vessels. There are number of factors that
need to be checked to ensure that chemicals can be loaded, carried and discharged safely.