Offshore support vessel (OSV) owners need to jointly lobby regulators, especially IMO, to demonstrate environmental and sustainability performance
If owners do not engage with regulators, OSV operators will be forced to follow mandatory rules to cut emissions without having any influence on regulations.
This was a message from P&O Maritime Logistics head of health, safety, environment and quality Ian Trebinski at Riviera Maritime Media’s Annual Offshore Support Journal Conference in London.
“Offshore needs to grow its profile and speak with organisations setting rules that affect us,” said Mr Trebinski. “We need to engage with IMO, we need to be represented at these bodies – we need a voice at the table of IMO,” he said.
Mr Trebinski said OSV owners need to collate data on fuel consumption, emissions and sustainability on a new open source platform to demonstrate the environmental improvements already achieved by the industry.
P&O Maritime has launched such a platform that will be cloud-based, open and free to use.
Mr Trebinski said it will hold anonymised data on machinery performance, crew safety and environmental sustainability. “This will help us all identify trends, efficiencies and sustainability,” he said, “for all of our benefit for years to come.”
He hopes other vessels owners will join this open platform by providing their data and collaborate in achieving industry aims to reduce emissions and become more sustainable.
“We need to move forward and collaborate with more data to provide answers to difficult questions,” said Mr Trebinski. “We need to be ready to trial and adopt technology and then share lessons on what does work and what does not,” he said.
Another open platform was presented on day two of the OSJ conference – which also won the OSJ Safety Award 2020 – the Open Simulation Platform.
This has been set up and trialled by a consortium of companies and organisations, led by class society DNV GL.
The platform will be used to model vessel newbuildings with complex onboard systems, using a digital twin before they are built and commissioned.
DNV GL principal specialist for DP simulations Luca Pivano presented its potential for designing ships with complicated and integrated systems to ensure they interface together. He said this will help stakeholders test different types of technology to ensure they do not affect vessel stability.
“This is an open platform to do virtual commissioning and testing with a digital twin to solve challenges,” said Mr Pivano.
He said this Open Simulation Platform has been used to model a walk-to-work vessel and gangway use. In this example, the digital twin indicated that a gangway designed to operate in wave heights up to 3 m could only be used in 2 m wave heights because of the stability and motion of the vessel.
This platform is still being developed and expanded, with simulation standards due to be introduced in June this year, said Mr Pivano.
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