Fender Selection for Reverse Lightering of Ship-to-Ship Transfer Operations

The ship maneuvering procedures and fender selection of ship-to-ship transfer operation of crude oil are recommended in the OCIMF (Oil Companies International Marine Forum) guideline. The fender selection is mainly based on a berthing energy of two ships, and empirical rules of the mooring masters. Recently due to new oil trade requirements, various type lightering operations have been conducted at the actual offshore field, especially “Reverse-lightering operation”. In this paper, some considerations on fender selection for the reverse-lightering operation are investigated and pointed out in berthing and mooring of ships by using numerical simulation software (IAMOS).