Role of Marine Warranty Surveyors and Their Requirements for Selected Items

For many decades, marine warranty surveyors provided services for various marine operations, such as, loadout, lifting, suitability survey of seagoing vessels, seafastening design approval, etc. But in the last few decades, the importance of marine warranty survey and their role has increased significantly because of large scale offshore activities for deep water oil exploration. In the ever changing offshore industry, installation activities have changed with the introduction of new concepts. Not only have their physical appearances changed but so have the methods of loadout, transportation, and installation. In the present environment of Spar, TLP, Semisubmersible, compliant platform, etc. the role of marine warranty surveyors have increased considerably. For example, installation of deck weighing 7000 tonnes in a single piece does not surprise the industry any more. Spars that are basically cylindrical stiffened steel structures, 750 feet long and 125 feet diameter have been dry towed for 35–40 days on heavy cargo carrying submersible ships from the fabrication yard in Finland to the Gulf of Mexico. With the changing scenario of platform loadout, transportation and installation, the companies providing marine warranty services have developed their own strategy to serve the best interest of the platform owner and the underwriters. This led to developing their own criteria based on experience and industry standard and practices. This paper has outlined primarily the role and importance of marine warranty services in the offshore industry. Since it is not possible to cover all issues specific to various methods of loadout, lifting, mooring, seafastening, installation, this paper limits its scope of presentation to key marine activities for an installation of gravity based jacket type structure. Industry standards and practices, guidelines, as well as marine warranty requirements, and “good” practices are also outlined.