COSCO Shipping has indicated it will coat its entire fleet of VLCCs with Nippon Paint Marine’s new antifouling system FASTAR® once initial applications have been evaluated, according to the company's release.
The hulls of the passenger ferry COSCO Star and the 56,000dwt bulk carrier Xin Liu Lin Hai will each be coated with the game-changing antifouling at drydockings scheduled later this year.
COSCO Star will dock at the COSCO Shanghai Dockyard in February for a FASTAR® XI application, with the bulker currently scheduled to take the FASTAR® I version in May, at the COSCO Guangzhou Dockyard.
The shipowner selected the novel nano resin containing paint – introduced to the market early last year – to help vessels meet the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI) requirements. The amendment to MARPOL Annex VI, which requires all vessels above 400gt to measure their energy efficiency, enters into force in January 2023.
According to Nippon Paint Marine, despite some market retraction last year, orders for the new coating increased steadily with the 135,000 litres of the coating having been applied to hulls totalling 4.2Mdwt.
FASTAR® is a self-polishing antifouling paint that incorporates a unique nano-domain resin structure designed to minimise the effect that seawater temperatures, vessel speeds and other external factors have on coating performance.
Nippon Paint Marine’s 4th generation antifouling system is available in two main versions – FASTAR® I and FASTAR® XI – of which the latter incorporates the company’s patented hydrogel technology.
About Nippon Paint Marine
Nippon Paint Marine business is a subsidiary of Nippon Paint Holdings, Asia’s foremost paint supplier and the world’s fourth largest coatings company.
With a global manufacturing and distribution network Nippon Paint Marine has been producing marine coatings since the 1880s and is widely regarded as a pioneer in the development hull protection and antifouling paints.
In the 1990s, the organisation developed and launched Ecoloflex, the world’s first self-polishing (SPC) tin-free antifouling paint. The first low-friction LF-Sea series followed in 2008 and in 2017 the organisation introduced Aquaterras, the world’s first biocide-free antifouling paint. In 2021, Nippon Paint Marine introduced FASTAR the industry’s first antifouling coating with a nano resin structure.
Nippon Paint Marine is accredited to ISO 14001 environmental standards and manufacturers coatings products in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals.