Thickness Measurement for Tankers and Bulk Carriers in Burgas

Inspection services for ships at Burgas

Each service has its own page with the method, the class requirements and what the report contains.

Gauging locations around Burgas Bay

Burgas has plenty of places where a ship sits still, but each comes with its own access conditions. At Rosenets, terminal rules govern every item of portable electronic equipment brought on deck, so the gauges, the permits and the working zones are agreed with the terminal and the master before the team boards. Deck work usually runs during discharge; ballast tank entry depends on the ship's own permit system and on the terminal's view of simultaneous operations, and the plan allows for either answer.

In the city port, bulk carriers and general cargo ships alongside offer the simplest access: a gangway, a gate pass and a work plan agreed with the chief officer. The anchorage is the place for hull gauging in Burgas Bay on ships waiting their turn, with the launch booked by the ship's agent and the weather deciding boarding on some winter days. For drydock work, the team can follow the ship to its yard, whether in Varna or across the border in Turkey, so the pre-docking figures and the in-dock figures come from the same technicians working to the same reference points and the same TM plan.

• Rosenets oil terminal — crude and product tanker berths on the south side of Burgas Bay; deck, ballast tank and deck-piping gauging during discharge, under terminal rules.
• Port of Burgas bulk berths — coal, ore, metals and fertiliser cargoes; hold frames, hopper and tank-top plating gauged between discharge and loading.
• Burgas city terminal — general cargo, container and ro-ro calls; deck, hatch coaming and accessible tank gauging while the ship is alongside.
• Burgas Bay anchorage — tankers and bulk carriers waiting their turn; a launch booked by the agent takes the team out for tank, hatch and deck work.

Tanker vetting, CAP and the rules that apply at Burgas

For tankers, the commercial pressure at Burgas comes from vetting rather than from the port. Charterers and oil-major vetting departments look at a ship's age, its CAP rating where one exists and its recent inspection history, and tankers over about fifteen years old are often expected to hold a CAP rating from their class society. A CAP survey rests on a gauging campaign more extensive than a routine renewal survey, and on an older crude tanker the readings in the deck, bottom and ballast tank structure are where the rating is decided. Pre-CAP gauging in Burgas, at Rosenets or in the bay, gives the operator an early picture of where the ship stands before committing to the full survey.

Bulgaria inspects foreign ships as a member of the Paris MoU and the Black Sea MoU, and EU rules apply at every Burgas berth: the 0.10% sulphur limit for ships at berth, the EU ETS for voyages to and from the port since 2024, and FuelEU Maritime since 2025. The Black Sea itself lies outside any emission control area, so scrubber-fitted ships run their systems at sea to meet the 0.50% global limit, and their wash-water and overboard piping carries a corrosion and erosion risk worth gauging at each docking. Owners trading into the Black Sea also plan around war-risk cover and routing advice in place since 2022; in-port gauging at Burgas is scheduled with the owner's current security guidance.

Wherever a ship is outside a sulphur emission control area, the global 0.50% sulphur cap applies, and many of the ships calling at Burgas meet it with an exhaust gas cleaning system rather than compliant fuel. Scrubber wash-water piping, the overboard discharge and the hull penetration around it corrode quickly in service, especially on open-loop systems, and are worth adding to the gauging scope.

How a thickness measurement job runs at Burgas

A gauging job at Burgas runs the same way whatever the ship type. The sequence below is what the superintendent, the attending surveyor and the yard can expect from us.

Burgas Airport lies just north of the city, and Sofia offers wider international connections with onward travel to the coast; Varna Airport is a further option when a job combines both Bulgarian ports. Rosenets and the port berths are ISPS-controlled, so the technicians' passes, the equipment list and any terminal safety induction are arranged through the ship's agent in advance, and the agent also books the launch for anchorage work. With Bulgaria inside Schengen, each technician needs a Schengen visa, and the mobilisation date is set by the visa decision as well as by the ship's ETA.

• Send the vessel name or IMO number, ship type, class society, the survey due (annual, intermediate, renewal survey number, CAP or owner's condition survey), the port and dates, and the scope you expect.
• We confirm the scope against the class rules for that survey, prepare the thickness measurement plan with frame and section references, and say whether the measurement will be credited to a class survey.
• Mobilisation is planned around visa lead times and the vessel's schedule; the ship's agent arranges port access, and the yard or ship arranges staging, lighting, ventilation and gas-free certificates.
• Gauging with calibrated ultrasonic thickness gauges: through sound coatings only where the gauge's through-coating mode has been verified on a coated reference, otherwise on cleaned bare steel, with every reading tied to its frame, strake and location on the sketch.
• Readings are compared with original thicknesses as work proceeds; substantial and excessive corrosion and any cracks are reported to the attending surveyor and the superintendent the same day.
• The final report is issued on the class thickness-measurement formats with sketches, a summary of locations exceeding the allowable margins, piping tables where piping was in scope, and the gauge calibration and technician certificates.

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