A ‘Connected Future’ seminar, organized by Inmarsat in collaboration with Maritime Reporter & Engineering News and moderated by Greg Trauthwein, encapsulated the important roles expertise and knowledge sharing play in enabling extra environment friendly and sustainable workboat operations, and in enhancing situations for crew.
Insights from main Offshore Supply Vessel house owners and operators seize the extent to which expertise and knowledge sharing are driving larger effectivity, sustainability and profitability in operations whereas enhancing working situations for onboard personnel.
Harvey Gulf lately provided proof of the positive aspects it secured after introducing a digital platform to measure emissions from an offshore assist vessel (OSV) able to working on LNG, diesel, and a mixture of LNG, diesel, and batteries.
“We get tons of data – the question is how to use it,” Dain Detillier, Executive Vice President – LNG Operations, Harvey Gulf International Marine informed a latest Inmarsat Maritime ‘Connected Future’ seminar staged in collaboration with Maritime Reporter and moderated by Editor, Greg Trauthwein.
“You have to pinpoint your ultimate goal; what you want to achieve. That’s something we try to do – narrow our focus so we’re concentrating on smaller goals, and then we can expand from there,” mentioned Detillier.
The preliminary remarks caught the temper of panellists of the seminar, which coincided with the International Workboat Show 2023 in New Orleans and went on to discover the positive aspects operators are already realising.
Detillier defined that whereas OSVs spend most of their time in dynamic positioning mode, working a number of engines at low masses, digitalised emissions-monitoring had helped Harvey Gulf to establish alternatives to make use of supplementary battery energy to run engines singly at power environment friendly 80% masses. This, Detillier mentioned, may lower gasoline consumption by round 30% and considerably cut back emissions consequently.
Fellow seminar panellist SEACOR Marine can also be pursuing a data-driven decarbonisation technique. Using a sensible fleet administration answer, the corporate transfers knowledge to shore in actual time to facilitate evaluation and achieve significant insights. Kyle Pemberton, Manager of Engineering, SEACOR, mentioned that this has offered the idea for inner discussions about gasoline effectivity that may “help crew to make better decisions”.
Pemberton additionally paraphrased ABS CEO Christopher J. Wiernicki to watch that, “Operational efficiency is your best fuel right now” – a mantra that shapes SEACOR’s strategy to decarbonization. “Digitalization is high on our list of priorities – even ahead of alternative fuels,” he mentioned. “If we do decide to adopt alternative fuels, we need to know how to use them efficiently.” Data, right here, might be essential.
For Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO), knowledge analytics is a well-known apply. In 2022, the corporate established Marine Technologies to offer clients with full vessel management options. Drawing on expertise gained accumulating and analysing knowledge to enhance its programs, ECO utilized the same data-driven strategy to watch emissions and assist distant service throughout its fleet.
Joining the ‘Connected Future’ panel was Ron Welles, C-Comm Manager, Marine Technologies. He described the “centralization of management and organization” as a precedence for the ECO fleet. Referring to a “central management system” that makes the identical data obtainable to each vessel, permitting personnel to be taught from incidents within the fleet, he mentioned: “We’re looking at how we can use this to cut down on administrative overheads, support information sharing, and get all the vessels running as a single unit.”
In his opening speech to the seminar, Eric Griffin, Vice President, Offshore Energy & Fishing, Inmarsat Maritime, described connectivity as “the oxygen that gives life to these digitalisation initiatives”. Yet the position of connectivity extends past enabling data-backed digitalisation and decarbonisation; it additionally helps firms to advertise a cheerful, wholesome working atmosphere for mariners, he mentioned.
With every of the panellists drawing on private expertise to emphasize the significance of quick and dependable crew web, Welles recalled a gasoline resupply run to Antarctica. “Before the mission, we received a call saying we couldn’t get crew on board unless we could provide them with the facility to keep in touch with their families,” he defined. “We installed Inmarsat connectivity on the vessel, and two and a half years later, this is one of the most successful jobs we’ve ever done in Antarctica.”
In a concluding suggestion, Welles added: “If you don’t provide crew with the means to connect, you’ll have a difficult time in today’s world.”
Image courtesy Inmarsat
