Wärtsilä to cut emissions, fuel consumption on two Siem vessels

The Finnish technology group Wärtsilä and vessel provider Siem Offshore have signed an optimised maintenance agreement to reduce the carbon footprint of two offshore well intervention vessels.

Wärtsilä signed a five-year agreement to ensure the optimal maintenance required to reduce the vessels’ fuel consumption and emissions by utilising the latest digital technology to provide real-time monitoring and support.

The two vessels in question are the Siem Helix 1 and Siem Helix 2. Each operates with eight Wärtsilä 32 engines and are operating in Brazil’s offshore oil fields.

The agreement, which was signed in December 2020, also covers the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) emissions-abatement systems installed with the engines.

Included in the agreement is Wärtsilä’s Expert Insight predictive maintenance solution. It is an innovative service that uses AI and advanced diagnostics to monitor equipment and systems in real-time, spot anomalies, foresee potential problems, and enable rapid reaction accordingly.

Should anomalous behaviour be detected, it is flagged to Wärtsilä specialists, allowing them to support the customer proactively with an appropriate resolution to the issue.

Also included is Wärtsilä’s Data Driven Maintenance concept and the Lloyd class-approved Wärtsilä connectivity solution with enhanced cybersecurity. The Data Driven Maintenance enables the ships’ crews to conduct condition inspections using borescope optical instruments.

The digital images provided will be sent to Wärtsilä’s technical experts for evaluation, and in most cases will lengthen the time required between engine overhauls.

The connectivity solution is an enabler for onshore digital tools providing cloud-based services such as remote monitoring, remote optimisation and support. With optimal maintenance procedures, safety is increased, and exhaust emissions reduced.

Dag Honnemyr, operational director at Siem Helix, said: “We appreciate the easy access to remote operational support made possible by Wärtsilä’s leading-edge solutions. This allows us to do maintenance when needed rather than at fixed intervals. We are especially excited with Expert Insight, which allows us to monitor the condition of the engines from ashore, and thanks to artificial intelligence and anomaly detection we expect to prevent unscheduled stops that cause loss of revenue”.

Henrik Wilhelms, director agreement sales at Wärtsilä Marine Power, added: “Lifecycle support is a key element of our strategy, and our advanced digital and data-based maintenance solutions are central to enabling optimal operational performance.

“The benefit of being able to efficiently monitor the equipment and support customers remotely is enhanced even more today since due to Corona-related travel restrictions, in-person visits by service engineers can be difficult to arrange.

“Since our engineers need to travel less, their carbon footprint is reduced, while at the same time we can optimise the performance of the asset, so it is really a double win”.