Erria Consulting has entered into one of its largest international assignments ever.

 

Erria Consulting will participate as an advisor to an ongoing construction projects for PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela), the national oil company in Caracas, Venezuela.
Initially, this is the building of four Aframax tankers from 2010 and four years ahead.

Aframax has nothing to do with Africa, but stands for "Average Freight Rate Assessment”.

Erria Consulting will assist with an inspection team at the shipyard, which on the same time shall act as a mentor for PDVSA's own Site Manager at the shipyard.

In addition to project coordination, the office in Copenhagen shall work with drawing approval and technical support.

Managing Director Henrik Andersen, Jørgen Thuesen and Vagn Skaarup visited the yard where the ships will be built.

It is the first time that the shipyard shall build a tanker. The yard was involved in construction of a small multipurpose container vessel, but the building of this ship was never completed. In other words, it is a shipyard with limited experience in shipbuilding, so this will be a great task and challenge for Erria Consulting

 

An Aframax tanker is around 113,000 DWT. Cargo tanks can contain up to 129,500 cubic meters of crude oil, it is 250 meters long and has a width of 44 meters.

As it can be hard to imagine the size for so large a construction, you must imagine it placed on a football field.  

As shown in the drawing, it becomes necessary to find three football fields in line, for the ship to stand on the lawn.

 

 

 

The total steel weight, i.e. the ship without machinery and outfitting is 17,184 T.  

When the next shipment of steel plates arrives at the yard, the construction of straight and curved panels will begin.

These sections will then be combined into larger blocks, so large that they just can be inside the paint shop, where the coating process starts with grit blasting and then painted.

The blocks will then be assembled into huge blocks, after which they will be lifted down into the dock.

 However, this is slightly future although the building was started several months ago, the only visible sign of the first AFRAMAX  are lots of T-bars.

It is expected that the actual commencement will begin in April, when the steel plates arrive at the Ship yard. At that time, we have placed our site manager at the shipyard.