Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement for Ships at the Port of Sines

Inspection services for ships at Sines

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

Gauging at the Sines terminals and anchorage

Container ship gauging at Terminal XXI is fitted into the call. The team boards once the ship is secured, works in double-bottom, side and wing ballast tanks and on deck structure clear of the crane lanes, and leaves holds that are being worked. On the largest ships a single call is rarely enough for a full renewal-survey scope, so the useful product is targeted: known problem areas, the ballast tanks the class has flagged for substantial corrosion, and scrubber wash-water and overboard piping, which many large container ships now carry.

Tanker gauging at Sines follows the liquid bulk terminal's safety rules: cargo tanks are not entered during cargo operations, and electronic instruments on deck in hazardous zones need permission. The practical approach is ballast-tank gauging at the anchorage before berthing, when a laden crude tanker or LNG carrier has empty ballast tanks. The anchorage is on an open coast, so Atlantic swell and wind decide whether launch transfers can run, and the plan carries a weather allowance from the start. Product tankers loading at the refinery berths reverse the timing: they arrive with ballast tanks full and empty them during loading, so gauging fits the departure side if the schedule allows.

• Terminal XXI (PSA Sines) — targeted ballast-tank, deck and scrubber piping gauging on large container ships within the transhipment window.
• Liquid bulk terminal — ballast-tank and deck gauging on crude and product tankers serving the Galp refinery, within the terminal's permit rules.
• REN LNG terminal — ballast-tank and inner-hull readings from the ballast side on LNG carriers, coordinated with gas-safety requirements.
• Petrochemical terminal — ballast-tank and deck gauging on chemical tankers, with cargo tanks left for a gas-free docking.
• Sines anchorage — launch-served pre-docking gauging on laden tankers and waiting container ships, subject to Atlantic swell.
• Multipurpose terminal — hold, hatch coaming and ballast-tank gauging on bulk carriers and general cargo ships during their stay.

Regulation and market context at Sines

Portugal applies port state control under the Paris MoU, and the deep-sea ships calling at Sines, some of the largest afloat, are subject to the same risk-based targeting as at any EU port. The EU ETS (since 2024) and FuelEU Maritime (since 2025) apply to every call, and the ETS has made the location of transhipment hubs a commercial question for container lines; Sines is an EU hub on the Atlantic side of the Strait of Gibraltar. For gauging purposes the point is simpler: the container ships and tankers here are large, often older, and on tight rotations, so time at anchor is the only time most of them offer.

No sulphur ECA applies off the Alentejo coast yet. September 2028 ends that, when the 0.10% sulphur limit of the North-East Atlantic ECA, adopted at MEPC 84 and in force from 1 September 2027, starts to apply in mainland Portuguese waters; from then the container ships and tankers calling here will either burn ECA-compliant fuel or run their scrubbers in ECA mode on the approach. Tankers loading and discharging here are ESP ships, gauged under IACS UR Z10.4 if they are double-hull oil tankers or Z10.3 if they are chemical tankers, and vetting departments and charterers commonly look for CAP once a tanker passes about 15 years. Container ships and LNG carriers sit outside the ESP regime, so UR Z7 and the society's own rules set the extent of their gauging.

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

Most of the work on a Sines job happens before the team boards: scope, plan and access are settled first, so the time on board goes on measurement.

The team flies into Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport and continues south to Sines by road; Faro Airport in the Algarve is an alternative for some routings. The ship's agent arranges ISPS passes and terminal inductions at Terminal XXI, the liquid bulk terminal or the LNG terminal, and launch boats for ships at the anchorage. Each technician travels on a Schengen visa issued in India; we apply once the call or docking is firm and ask for an invitation letter from the owner or agent. Because an open-coast anchorage is weather-dependent, boarding times are confirmed with the agent close to the day.

• 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.

Related