Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement and Hull Gauging in Dammam

Inspection services for ships at Dammam

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

Where Gauging Happens in and Around Dammam

Most jobs in Dammam are done afloat: alongside at King Abdulaziz Port during cargo operations, or at the outer anchorage while a ship waits for its berth. Afloat work suits deck plating, hatch coamings, exposed piping and any tank the master can have cleaned, ventilated and certified gas-free. For offshore support vessels, tugs and workboats, the Zamil shipbuilding and repair yard inside the port gives full access in dock, including bottom plating, sea chests and the tanks that are hard to reach afloat.

Deep-sea ships from the Eastern Province generally dock elsewhere. ASRY in Bahrain is the established large repair yard closest to Dammam, and the UAE yards take a share of the work. When a ship is heading to one of them, gauging it in Dammam first lets the superintendent send measured wastage, not estimates, with the repair specification, and the yard can order steel before the ship arrives. Outdoor work in the Saudi summer is restricted in the middle of the day, so we schedule deck and shell readings for the early morning and late afternoon and use the hottest hours for work inside tanks.

• King Abdulaziz Port container terminals — selective gauging of deck, hatch coamings and scrubber overboard piping within the cargo window of a scheduled call
• King Abdulaziz Port general cargo and bulk berths — hold, tank top and hopper gauging as each hold is discharged and swept
• Zamil shipbuilding and repair yard, King Abdulaziz Port — in-dock hull, tank and sea-chest gauging on offshore support vessels, tugs and workboats
• Dammam anchorage — pre-purchase, on-hire and condition gauging on ships waiting for a berth, reached by launch through the ship's agent
• Ras Tanura and Ju'aymah — tanker gauging at anchorage before or after loading, where the terminal operator and the ship's operator agree to it
• ASRY, Bahrain — pre-docking estimates and in-dock gauging for Eastern Province ships that dock across the water

Port State Control, Sulphur Rules and the Eastern Province Fleet

Saudi Arabia belongs to the Riyadh MoU, the port state control regime of the GCC states, so ships calling at Dammam are inspected under that regime. Structural wastage, holed air pipes, corroded ventilators and leaking fire-main sections are the kind of finding that a short gauging and inspection visit before arrival can catch while there is still time to repair. The Gulf is not an emission control area: the global sulphur limit of 0.50% under MARPOL Annex VI regulation 14, in force since 1 January 2020, is the rule here, and ships with exhaust gas scrubbers can burn high-sulphur fuel. Wash water is acidic and warm, and in Gulf service the overboard pipes, distance pieces and valve bodies downstream of the scrubber are where thinning shows first.

The fleet that calls repeatedly at Dammam is regional: Saudi and Gulf-owned feeder and general cargo ships, offshore support vessels on charter to the oil and gas fields, and tankers lifting from the Aramco terminals up the coast. Long-term charters with energy companies usually carry condition clauses, and tanker charterers and oil-major vetting look closely at structure on ships approaching their third renewal survey. For these owners, thickness gauging in Saudi Arabia is part of keeping a charter as much as passing a survey, which is why trend data from one visit to the next matters.

Wherever a ship is outside a sulphur emission control area, the global 0.50% sulphur cap applies, and many of the ships calling at Dammam 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 Dammam

A gauging job at Dammam 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.

Our team flies into King Fahd International Airport, which has direct services from several Indian cities, and travels by road to Dammam or to the landing point for the anchorage. Access to King Abdulaziz Port needs ISPS gate passes, which the ship's agent applies for with each technician's passport and visa details; anchorage work needs a launch, also booked through the agent. Indian technicians need a Saudi business visit visa, so we start the application as soon as the vessel's dates are firm and keep the agent informed. For a planned yard visit, that lead time sits comfortably inside normal drydock planning.

• 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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