Maintenance job on LNG-tanker

One of the largest seagoing maintenance projects has been extended, involving the cleaning and coating of the ballast spaces of two long-serving LNG carriers.
Newcastle-based Matatec purchased 6 Atlas Copco portable compressors for blast cleaning a total area of more than 80,000 sqm in the 71,500 cm cargo-capacity sisters Methane Arctic and Methane Polar. However, the scope of the job has now been increased to 160,000 sqm, with scheduled completion in August 1999.
Owned by a Singapore-registered affiliate of British Gas and managed by Gotaas-Larsen, the two 48,500 gt tankers feed the Spanish Mediterranean city of Barcelona with LNG from Iran on a continuous basis.
The ballast tanks are emptied one or two at a time and blast- cleaned in sections using expendable copper slag abrasive. Soon after, the cleaned sections are treated with a coat of coal tar epoxy. The entire tank is then washed with high-pressure water, dried and given a second coat of paint.
Matatec has 16 full-time employees on each ship, comprising three British engineers and 13 Polish technicians. The maintenance system being employed has obviated the need for dry-docking the vessels, and of chartering tonnage in the interim to keep up the supplies of LNG to Barcelona.