The Muehlhan Group is one of the world’s most experienced marine coatings application companies. When Muehlhan was contracted to re-coat the ballast tanks on the Saipem 7000 semi-submersible crane vessel, Hempel supplied a ballast tank coating that enabled them to work around the clock.

Saipem provides advanced drilling and pipe-laying services to the oil and gas industry. Its state-of-the-art Saipem 7000 semi-submersible crane vessel has the capacity to handle the entire scope of offshore construction projects, from pipe-laying to heavy lifting. The vessel’s cutting-edge design includes a fast ballasting system, made up of 40 ballast tanks and 14 rapid ballast tanks.

When the vessel came out of service for routine maintenance in December 2015, the Muehlhan Group was contracted to re-coat the ballast tanks. The docking schedule was tight and winter temperatures were low, so the company chose our PSPC-approved Hempadur Quattro XO ballast tank coating. Offering very short re-coating intervals, even in temperatures as low as -10°C, Hempadur Quattro XO enabled Muehlhan to coat 80,000m² in just 110 days.

Guy Tanguy, General Manager at Muehlhan B.V., said: “Throughout this unique project Hempadur Quattro XO 17870 has proven its excellent application characteristics. The re-coat intervals were very short, which made it possible to work around the clock and enabled us to finish coating the tanks within a very tight schedule.”

Following the success of the project, Muehlhan has chosen Hempel coatings for other work on the vessel, including coating a further 55,000m² in the ballast tanks and spot repairs on the vessel’s cranes.