Chemical tankers have always been a mainstay for the shipbuilding industry in Turkey. The shipowners of these tankers have typically specified MarineLine from Advanced Polymer Coating (Avon, Ohio, USA) as the cargo tank coating of choice. In some years MarineLine has reached 85 to 90% market share of all chemical tanker newbuilds and tank retrofits/recoatings in Turkey.

According to MarineLine’s top officer in Turkey, Captain Koray Karagoz, president of MarineLine Turkiye, (Tuzla, Turkey), in 2016 the MarineLine® coating has now achieved 100% market share of the chemical tanker cargo tank coating market. There are many reasons for this success says Captain Karagoz. “Our reputation in Turkey is excellent. All the shipowners and yards like our coating and our company, and services. We have built strong relationships, backed by superb performance of the MarineLine coating system which delivers profitable Return on investment every day.”

Ship operators sailing with MarineLine®-coated vessels affirm this, explaining that there is less cleaning time required, less chemicals used during the cleaning procedure, and less fuel used during cleaning. This provides substantial reductions in CO2, SOx and NOx emissions, a powerful benefit for the environment.

CURRENT WORK
In the past few months, there have been some political issues in Turkey, however Captain Karagoz has not seen this spill over into the shipbuilding sector. “Shipping is a worldwide business so Turkey’s localized issues do not readily affect Turkish shipbuilding. It remains business as usual.”
To support this claim, he notes a solid orderbook at this time and in future months for MarineLine® cargo tank coating projects, encompassing 18 chemical tankers plus 8 options on additional ships. Some of these projects are newbuild tankers, while the re-coating work involves removing competitors’ epoxy tank coatings and replacing these with MarineLine®:
• Two 5,850dwt newbuilds for Armona Denizcilik AS
• Six 8,000dwt plus two options re-coatings for Scot Tanker
• One 6,000dwt newbuild for Nakkas Shipping & Trading Ltd
• One 6,000 re-coating for Torlak Shipyard
• One 8,400dwt plus six options newbuilds for Medmarine
• Three repairs or re-coatings for Teckne Shipping
• One 10,800dwt plus two 14,000dwt re-coatings for Transal Shipping
• One 5,700dwt project for Borealis Shipping

Captain Karagoz added, “Shipyards in Turkey are noted for offering competitively priced newbuild and re-recoating/repair services to shipowners around the world. These shipyards and owners have come to trust MarineLine® as the best solution for chemical carriers who want to employ coated cargo tanks to transport the full IMO range.”