Thickness Gauging for Tankers, LNG Ships and Container Ships in Wilhelmshaven

Inspection services for ships at Wilhelmshaven

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

Jetties, terminals and moorings where gauging takes place

The crude oil jetties are the busiest setting for crude tanker gauging in Wilhelmshaven, and also the most controlled. Every job is agreed with the terminal and run under the ship's permit-to-work system; equipment, access routes and timing are fixed before the team boards. The useful scope during a discharge is deck plating and longitudinals, deck piping and supports, the pump room, and segregated ballast tanks while they are still empty and gas readings allow entry.

The LNG import terminal sits within its own safety zone. On the FSRUs, gauging is planned with the operator around regasification and LNG transfers, and covers ballast tanks, deck, topside support structure and machinery spaces outside the hazardous areas. LNG carriers delivering to the FSRUs offer only short windows. At JadeWeserPort the working call of a large container ship is the window for scrubber piping, deck and hatch coaming gauging, and the outer anchorages are used for small jobs by launch. Ships that need a full docking programme are best gauged here first, with the team then following them to the docking yard to complete the work.

• Crude oil terminal jetties — deck, deck piping, pump-room and empty ballast tank gauging on crude carriers during discharge, under terminal and ship permits.
• LNG import terminal and FSRU moorings — ballast tank, deck and topside structure gauging on FSRUs on station, planned with the operator.
• JadeWeserPort container terminal — readings on scrubber discharge pipework, upper deck and hatch coamings of very large container ships during the call.
• Outer Jade and German Bight anchorages — brief launch-supported jobs in deck and machinery spaces on ships at anchor.
• Bulk and general cargo quays — hold and deck gauging on dry bulk and project-cargo ships once discharge is complete.

Energy security, emissions rules and port state control on the Jade

The Jade is covered by the North Sea SOx ECA, which means every ship on it burns 0.10% sulphur fuel or scrubs its exhaust. For crude carriers and container ships coming from outside Europe that means a fuel changeover before arrival or a scrubber in service, and because their calls here are short, a scrubber ship's wash-water and overboard lines should be measured whenever the chance arises. Port state control follows the Paris MoU, under which tankers past a certain age are subject to expanded inspections, so recent gauging records are useful to have aboard.

The port's energy role grew sharply once Germany began importing LNG by sea, and Wilhelmshaven became one of its main LNG entry points, while the crude terminal remains a key supply route for inland refineries. Both trades rely on long-lived, heavily vetted ships: crude carriers in their second and third survey cycles, LNG carriers that trade for decades, and FSRUs on long charters. The arrival of EU ETS for shipping in 2024 and of FuelEU Maritime in 2025 adds to the pressure on owners to show that older ships are structurally sound before committing them to further European trading.

Ships trading to Wilhelmshaven are inside a sulphur emission control area, where fuel must not exceed 0.10% sulphur unless an exhaust gas cleaning system (scrubber) is fitted. Scrubber wash-water piping, the overboard discharge and the hull penetration around it are among the fastest-corroding parts of a modern ship, so they belong in the gauging scope at every docking and, on open-loop systems, between dockings.

How a thickness measurement job runs at Wilhelmshaven

A gauging job at Wilhelmshaven 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.

The nearest airports with international connections are Bremen and Hamburg, from where Wilhelmshaven is reached by road or rail. Every terminal here is ISPS-controlled and the energy terminals add their own inductions, so the ship's agent submits the team's details and equipment list early; launches for anchorage work are arranged through the agent too. Technicians travelling from India need Schengen visas for Germany, and they must be in hand before travel, so share terminal dates as soon as the ship is nominated.

• 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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