Deepsea mining, polar research vessels and the challenges and opportunities involved in operating in the Arctic Ocean were the focus of the Offshore Dialogue conference at this year's SMM trade fair in Hamburg.
The first session, titled 'The Unknown Oceans', kicked off with Rolls-Royce Marine vice president for hydro and design Einar Vegsund discussing the company's polar research vessels Kronprins Haakon and RRS David Attenborough. The remainder of the session focused on aspects of deepsea mining.
Jacobs University Bremen's Professor Andrea Koschinsky and DEME Blue Energy general manager Joury Van Gijseghem gave presentations on responsible gathering of manganese nodules formed on the seabed in the northern Pacific Ocean, including equipment development, environmental impact and rationale for this method as opposed to land-based mining. Harren+Partner Shipping's Heiko Felderhoff discussed his company's use of vertical, as opposed to horizontal, mining techniques for harvesting massive sulphides in the deep sea.
The second session, 'Heading North', focused on responsible development of the Arctic and the challenges and opporunities the maritime sector faces as the region is increasingly used for shipping. Contributors included Arctic Economic Council director Anu Frederikson, IMO technical officer Sascha Pristrom, Wärtsilä general manager for market innovation Teus van Beek, Lloyd's Register new ship construction consultant Robert Tustin and Hamburg Ship Model Basin head of arctic technology Nils Reimer. Topics covered included IMO's polar code, increasing use of arctic routes such as the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route, trends in arctic shipping and considerations for vessel design.
Responding to a question from Offshore Support Journal on what impact arctic conditions have on design considerations for OSVs in particular, Mr Reimer noted that a big challenge is balancing good seakeeping behaviour required for operating in open water and heavier sea states with icebreaking behaviour. Another factor is balancing ice operating design and hull geometry, as an AHTS, for example, has certain unavoidable hard points in its design that are required for operation. Propulsion, too, can be an issue, as nozzle-based propulsion systems run the risk of clogging up and accumulating ice.
Mr van Beek noted that propellers and thrusters can actually be used for ice management, by positioning them in such a way that they can effectively “eat away the ice”. However, equipment designs that excel at this may not be as efficient in open-water operation. “If you gain on the left, you lose on the right and that's the balance you have to face. The more we know about these conditions the better we can play the game.”
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