Focus on China. DNV has been represented in China since 1888 and moved its headquarters from Hong Kong to China in 1998. Also in this issue: Company profile OOCL, DNV Technical Committee, Yang Shan Container Terminal and Parametric rolling.
Text and photographs: Magne A. Røe, except where otherwise stated.Date: 2008-02-07
OOCL has a fleet of 28 container vessels ranging in size from 8,505 teu to 2,808 teu, with a total capacity of 350,000 teu. OOCL also operates 37 chartered vessels.
There are more than 200 DNV employees at 19 locations and 34 offices in Region Greater China (RGC), all dedicated to serving the maritime industry. The growth of the region is reflected in the plan to increase the number of employees by 40 in 2006.
Focus on quality. “Our first priority is quality,” Tor E. Svensen told the DNV Greater China Technical Committee at the meeting held at the Sheraton Great Wall hotel in Beijing.
It is now more than seven years since the APL China incident that led to the renewed focus on parametric rolling for container ships. Since then, we have seen several incidents but fewer in recent years, which may prompt the question, has the problem been solved?
China’s biggest shipbuilding company was created on Friday, 9 December 2005, through a merger between two state-owned shipyards in Dalian, a port city in the Liaoning province.
IACS (the International Association of Classification Societies) has just completed a set of guidelines for the survey, assessment and repair of container-ship hull structures and this is now available to the industry.
We drove by minibus for 30 minutes on the new six-lane motorway bridge, leaving the shores of China just south of Pudong International airport. We arrived at the new terminal just a few days after it was officially opened. This is a deepwater facility with an available draft of 15.0 metres.
James Jin Huang, DNV customer service manager – COSCO
APL-NOL and DNV have signed an agreement to co-operate for the next eight years to improve the operational conditions for container ships.
DNV has established a scholarship for a PhD student at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) to study hydrodynamic problems relating to large container ships.
How DNV optimises the contact between the rapidly growing units in China and the head office in Norway.
After 2004, which was a record year for the container shipping market, 2005 was characterised by a cooling down in many regards.
