Evaluating the potential of a mobile shiprepair facility

Abstract

Setting up or dismantling a shiprepair yard requires vast amounts of time and resources. Current shiprepair yards are land-based facilities that can not be moved when demand for their services declines. A mobile shiprepair facility would be able to and Damen Shiprepair & Conversion (DS&C) expressed interest to investigate the potential of a mobile shiprepair unit. When executed correctly, such a facility may reduce total repair time and thereby increase vessel availability through a higher shiprepair efficiency and reduction of travel time to the repair yard. The resulting competitive advantage can lead to profit maximization of DS&C.The goal of this thesis is to develop recommendations for DS&C regarding the feasibility of a mobile shiprepair facility. No facility of this kind exists to date, therefore the first step is to determine preliminary design features. The target market will be the mandatory intermediate and special surveys that a vessel is obliged to undergo every two and a half and five years respectively, requiring the vessels to undergo underwater investigations. A design feature following from that is the ability to haul vessels out of the water. The concept should moreover be sea-going, easy to (re)deploy and contain an all-round workshop and warehousing capabilities.Subsequently, the costs and projected revenues of the concept are identified and combined in a financial model. The cost items which differentiate a mobile yard from a traditional land-based shiprepair yard are: direct labour cost, machinery & installations cost, housing cost and travel expenses. Revenue results from shiprepair services and includes the quantified competitive advantage. The feasibility of a mobile shiprepair facility is then further evaluated in two case studies: the Caribbean sea and the west-coast of the African continent. The target market in the Caribbean are Supramax/Handymax size vessels and the target market in west-Africa is the support vessels for the offshore oil and gas sector. Both case studies evaluate a semi-submersible non-propelled facility that operates in a sheltered location.The Caribbean is the only area of the two case studies that shows potential. This can be explained by a higher efficiency and hence more projects that can be executed per year. Moreover, the same services can be sold for a higher price than on the west-coast of Africa. Several scenarios were identified in which the concept can be feasible on an annual base. However, the likeliness that these conditions persist during the projects lifetime is considered low and thus it is not recommended to deploy a mobile shiprepair facility in this area. Regarding the west-coast of Africa case study, even under the most favourable conditions - a very high occupational rate and an increase in target market conditions - it is not recommended to deploy a mobile shiprepair facility.It has been concluded using a stochastic sensitivity analysis that the duration of the maintenance project largely determines feasibility. The sensitivity to the fuel price, day rates of future clients and the reduction in deviation days were studied as well. All three were found not to be of large influence for the determination of feasibility, although it had been suspected differently for the last two. It has been found that the added value of the concept can not be transformed enough into a competitive advantage.If a change in conditions justifies the further development of this concept, this report provides several design criteria. Subsequently, recommendations are made on the design of a tool for the maximization of the reduction in deviation time of future clients to enhance the potential of the concept.