Coatings World - August 2013

The Marine Coatings Market

Marine coating manufacturers are seeing an uptick in ship repair and maintenance, which will offset the loss of volume in newbuilding.

Kerry Pianoforte, Editor

Although the ship newbuilding market continues to be in decline, the market for marine coatings benefitted from an increase in ship repair and maintenance. Marine coatings manufacturers are focusing their efforts on developing antifouling coatings that will decrease maintenance costs and increase vessel efficiency.

“The marine coatings market grew steadily in 2012 and is expected to continue to similarly in 2013 and beyond,” said Tim McDonough, USCA marine market director for Sherwin-
Williams Protective and Marine Coatings. “Overall, market
growth is expected to be around four percent globally with Asia
continuing to grow and both Europe and the U.S. flat.”
Jotun reported that 2012 was a productive year for them for
marine coatings. “Several new products were launched to the
market in 2012,” said Tom Evensen, group category manager
antifouling, Jotun Coatings. “Notably all major suppliers have
now included silyl antifouling products into their portfolio, a
technology platform that Jotun has promoted and refined for
decades in the market.”
In addition, Jotun reported there has been numerous launches
of low-cost solutions to respond to a financially troubled in-
dustry where minimizing vessel maintenance cost – including
paint investment – is a focus area. “All in all we experienced
a polarized antifouling market with cost focus on one end and
investment in vessel efficiency on the other. The demand of low
cost antifouling solutions were larger in 2012, meaning that the
average product applied in 2012 most likely did not contribute
to improve the environmental profile of the shipping industry,”
Evensen added. “For 2013 and beyond we work towards and
anticipate increased awareness of the importance of hull and
antifouling performance with regards to influence on vessel ef-
ficiency. Typical energy efficiency reduction due to hull perfor-
mance ranges between 15 to 20 percent over a docking interval
of 60 months in the market today. We anticipate a transition
towards more premium solutions offering significant savings in
fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions compared to
the current market average.”
The newbuilding (NB) market has continued to decline dra-
matically over the past three years. “The NB market in 2012
represented a little more than a third of all marine coatings