Thickness Gauging for Chemical Tankers, Gas Carriers and Bulk Ships in Jubail

Inspection services for ships at Jubail

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

Where Gauging Is Done in Jubail and Ras Al-Khair

Almost all gauging in Jubail is done afloat. At the liquid berths of King Fahd Industrial Port, terminal safety rules govern who boards and what work is allowed, so tank entry and gauging during a loading call need the terminal's agreement as well as the master's, and the tank must be certified gas-free. The anchorage gives more freedom: a ship waiting for its next jetty can open, ventilate and gauge cargo and ballast tanks with no other cargo operation nearby. At Jubail Commercial Port, general cargo and container ships can be gauged during cargo work on deck, in holds and in accessible tanks.

Jubail has no long-established drydock of its own. International Maritime Industries (IMI) is building up a large shipbuilding and repair yard at Ras Al-Khair, north of the city, and the Zamil yard in Dammam and ASRY in Bahrain are within reach for docking. For any of them, gauging the cargo area in Jubail before the ship leaves gives the repair specification real figures, and leaves the in-dock days for the bottom, the sea chests and the areas that can only be reached in dock.

• King Fahd Industrial Port liquid berths — cargo tank, deck line and heating coil gauging on chemical tankers between parcels, with terminal and master agreement
• Jubail anchorage — full cargo and ballast tank gauging on chemical and product tankers waiting for their next jetty, reached by launch
• Jubail Commercial Port — hold, hatch cover and deck gauging on general cargo, multipurpose and container ships during cargo operations
• Ras Al-Khair Port — hold frame, hopper plate and tank top gauging on bulk carriers loading fertiliser and minerals
• IMI yard, Ras Al-Khair — pre-docking and in-dock gauging for ships booked into the yard International Maritime Industries is building up there
• Gas carrier loading berths — hull, ballast tank and deck piping gauging on gas carriers, moved to the anchorage when the loading stay is too short

Chemical Tanker Rules, Vetting and Regulation in Jubail

Ships in Jubail come under the Riyadh MoU for port state control, and inspectors at an industrial port pay close attention to cargo systems and deck structure. The heavier structural requirements come from the enhanced survey programme. SOLAS chapter XI-1 regulation 2 and the 2011 ESP Code make enhanced surveys mandatory for oil tankers and bulk carriers; for chemical tankers the equivalent requirements come through class under IACS UR Z10.3. In each case, areas of substantial corrosion found at one survey are measured again at the surveys that follow, which is where planned gauging between surveys saves the owner time in port.

Commercial pressure is as strong as regulation. Chemical tankers face inspection by the oil majors and by the Chemical Distribution Institute, and charterers lifting from Jubail's plants look at tank coatings and structure when choosing tonnage; older product and chemical tankers are often asked for CAP. For these owners, thickness measurement in Saudi Arabia is as much a vetting matter as a class one. The Gulf is outside any emission control area, so the 0.50% global sulphur cap applies, and scrubbers are more common on the larger tankers and bulk carriers calling here than on small chemical parcel tankers. Saudi Arabia is also building up maritime industry at home, and the Ras Al-Khair yard is part of that effort.

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

A gauging job at Jubail 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.

Jubail is reached through King Fahd International Airport near Dammam, with the team continuing north by road. King Fahd Industrial Port sits inside a controlled industrial city, so gate passes are tighter than at a commercial port: the ship's agent applies for them with each technician's passport and visa details, and terminal safety induction may be required before boarding. Anchorage work needs a launch from the port, again through the agent. Indian technicians travel on Saudi business visit visas, so we begin the application when the ship's parcel schedule settles and adjust travel as berth times move.

• 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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