Economic Analysis of Tank Coatings for Tankers in Clean Service
An economic analysis has been made of a hypothetical 30,000-dwt tanker operated in continuous, clean service. Under the premise that the ship will continue to operate throughout her remaining book-life in predominantly clean service, two alternatives are considered. Alternative I: Conventional corrosion policy is continued. Annual shipyard repair, including steel renewals and maintenance are performed to the extent required. Alternative II: The required steel renewals are made at the end of the fifth year of service and all tanks are coated with a zinc silicate coating. Annual shipyard repairs and maintenance are subsequently performed to the extent required. In general, the methods consisted of (a) generating steel-renewal requirements by appropriate simulations for the 20 years' book-life of the vessel, and (b) conducting economic analyses of alternatives I and II for comparison. The results of this study indicate that coating the tanks in accordance with alternative II represents a net saving of $998,301 by the end of the vessel's book-life. The payout time on the coating investment was found to be 6.6 years with an average, annual return on the coating investment of 21.9 percent.