KCC orders more hull cleaning tech to bolster decarbonisation drive

Norwegian shipping company Klaveness Combination Carriers (KCC) will expand its roll-out of the semi-autonomous hull cleaning solution, Shipshave ITCH, with five additional robots to reduce hull fouling on its fleet.

After a successful pilot of Shipshave’s solution onboard four vessels over 2021-22, KCC has confirmed an order for purchasing a further five latest generation Shipshave ITCH models.

According to the company, the decision was made after analyzing the fuel performance of the four vessels operating a Shipshave ITCH, which showed improvements in fuel efficiency between 2-5%.

A close collaboration with Klaveness Ship Management (KSM), the crew aboard the vessel and Shipshave’s engineers has been essential for further developing the solution to become a fleet-wide tool for KCC.

“The friction force from the vessels’ hulls is the major resistance factor from the operation of deep-sea vessels. Biofouling of the hull greatly increases this resistance, resulting in higher carbon emissions. In addition, there is also a potential biodiversity risk when transferring alien biomass from the vessels’ hulls across oceans into vulnerable regions,” commented KSM’s Head of Projects and Business Transformation Martin Wattum.

“Shipshave ITCH helps us to maintain fouling-free vertical sides of the hulls and delivers on both challenges and we look forward to rolling out the solution to the full CLEANBU fleet.”

“We believe innovation is well nurtured this way. Shipshave, and early mover KCC, has worked well together. We are very happy to supply KCC with a solution aiding in their pursuit of very ambitions sustainability goals. The savings obtained using ITCH makes an impressive ROI,” said Eirik Eide, Chief Commercial Officer at Shipshave.

KCC has been on a quest to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and achieved its net-zero goals. The company operates a fleet of CLEANBU combination carriers.

The CLEANBUs are both full-fledged LR1 product tankers and Kamsarmax bulk carriers transporting clean petroleum products (CPP), heavy liquid cargoes as CSS as well as all types of dry bulk products.

These vessels have an advanced design, environmental performance as well as operational and technical efficiency. Specifically, they have up to 40% lower CO2 emissions per ton mile transported cargo compared to standard vessels, in line with IMO’s 2030 targets for shipping, according to Klaveness..

Last year, KCC contracted Finnish energy efficiency solutions provider WE Tech Solutions to retrofit two of its ships with Solution One Economical Operations solution with Shore Connection.