formed in general very well. Even
though 2008 ended in financial turmoil
this did not affect the market for
marine paints for maintenance before
November/December. The number of
new builds that are cancelled and the
general reduction in new projects will
eventually lead to less activity by the
end 2009 and into 2010.
Our best understanding of the market
for marine coatings is that a lot of vessel
owners must focus on cash flow and
their liquidity. As a result of this there
will be a shift from premium products to
low cost products and/or application of
less paint (i.e. shorter DD intervals). On
the other hand those that have their
fleet on contracts may be more aware of
the opportunities for savings in their
bunker bill that lays in the upper premium antifouling products.
CW: How has recently enacted environmental legislation such as the
IMO’s antifouling treaty and the
Biocides Product Directive in EU
affected the global marine coatings
market?
CW: How have rising raw material
prices impacted the marine coatings market? Have you been able to
pass along price increases to your
customers?
Brown: The coatings industry is heavily regulated and we’re controlled in
many ways. In Europe for example,
REACH is a new regulation on chemicals and their safe use. It deals with the
registration, evaluation, authorization
and restriction of chemicals, which for
us means we can only use registered
raw materials in our coatings.
The SED, Solvents Emissions Directive, regulates VOC emissions from
facilities such as shipyards. This means
we have to produce coatings, which have
less solvent or are water-based.
We’re also regulated by the BPD, the
Biocidal Products Directive, where all
biocides used in antifouling paints need
to be evaluated and approved before they
can legally be sold.
In the U.S. there are also a series of
regulations governing the substances we
can use in our products together with
rules for VOC’s and biocides. We are also
now seeing new countries regulating in
these areas such as Hong Kong where
rules regarding VOCs are about to be
introduced.
For our customers, there are two main
areas of coatings legislation that have
had a significant impact and I believe
both have been beneficial. Firstly, the
Control of Harmful Antifouling Systems
on Ships, where from January 1, 2003
an International Maritime Organization
(IMO) convention established a ban on
the application of tributylin (TBT)
antifoulings on ship hulls and from
January 1, 2008 an end to the presence
of TBT on ships hulls altogether. The
convention entered into force on
September 17, 2007.
Secondly, The SOLAS Performance
Standard for Protective Coatings for
dedicated seawater ballast tanks in all
types of ships and double-side skin
spaces of bulk carriers. Again I believe
this is beneficial and welcome the introduction of a standard that will help
increase the service life of coatings and
ultimately crew and vessel safety.
Brown: Rising raw material prices have
had a large impact on the marine coatings market in recent times. Large
increases and inflationary pressures
seen in the global economy during 2008
have increased the cost of coatings manufacture. Despite published falls in commodity prices experienced recently the
market remains volatile and is showing
year on year increases in key raw material prices. As a company we strive to
minimize price increases to our customers by employing various techniques
such as forward purchasing of key commodities and benchmarking activities.
As many of our customers have pricing
contracts in place we have absorbed
much of these increases ourselves, but
have been forced to implement increases
across the market.
Eikenes: In general we welcome environmental legislations. For instance the
BPD in the EU has created an environment where biocides that are not well
documented are more or less phased out
of the market. All major suppliers are following this legislation. However, an
increase in bureaucracy has been a consequence of this, which in turn has influenced negatively on innovations.
Eikenes: The last few years we experienced significant increases in raw material cost. The prices on zinc and copper
had almost a threefold increase, which
has been a challenge for the coating
suppliers. We have not managed to
increase the prices to fully compensate
increased cost.
With three vessels already coated and more specified for application this year,
Wightlink Ltd, a UK-based ferry company have firmly adopted International Paint’s
foul release coating system, Intersleek 900 fluoropolymer foul release coating. They
selected Intersleek 900 for the vessels FastCat Ryde (shown in the picture), Our Lady
Pamela and FastCat Shanklin were respectively drydocked. The vertical sides of all
three vessels were coated with Intersleek 900. The product has since provided cost
benefits to the owner, including improved fuel consumption, reduced CO emissions
2
and a reduced requirement for slipping.
