150 YEARS - Rina

May 2011 Newsletter of the RINA GROUP
In this issue:
FOCUS
Paolo Salza, Head of Marine
Technical Department, RINA
RINA is a leader in helping shipping
to be greener. But we never forget
that our first duty is to safety. And
we never forget that we work in a
competitive world, where investment
will only go to projects which are
efficient, reliable and fit for purpose.
So while we build respect for the
environment into everything we do,
everything we do must aim to be safe,
efficient and reliable. Putting that
philosophy into practice today means
a new way of thinking for classification
societies. It is not enough to ensure
that rules based on experience are up
to date and are followed.
We have to use risk-based tools to
assess new technologies, or existing
technologies used in new ways.
RINA is doing that, for shipping, for
offshore, and for the benefit of the
environment.
Visit us at Nor-Shipping Stand
No DOS-12 to hear how RINA’s
Technology Qualification process can
help you.
• Ice Breaking Emergency Evacuation Vessels
• Financial risk management
• Solar plant finance
• Plastic welders
paolo.salza@rina.org
Handling gaS SaFely
Natural gas ticks all the boxes for a fuel. It is
clean, it is in plentiful supply and it is relatively
cheap. And it has a remarkably good safety
record. But projects for the use of LNG as a
fuel for a wide range of ship types, projects to
harness multiple small pocket of natural gas
and projects to import gas for use ashore using
offshore terminals take natural gas handling
into new areas. That makes it critical that
we focus on safe handling of the gas being
harvested, transported and used in new ways
and by people without previous gas experience.
The excellent safety record of LNG carriers at
sea is based on a safety culture ingrained in
the crews of those ships and the terminals that
serve them. When we begin to look at using LNG
as a fuel for ro-ro ships in the Mediterranean, or
as an alternative to low-sulphur fuel for tankers
or other cargo vessels, safety becomes critical.
Rules and procedures for the use of gas as
a fuel must take into account that the crews
handling the gas as fuel are trained in using
oil fuel, and do not have a gas carrier culture.
Crews handling CNG (Compressed Natural Gas)
carriers will be operating with new technology.
To date there is no commercial CNG operation
in action, but with a significant amount of the
world’s gas reserves in pockets where volumes
do not support a liquefaction plant or a
pipeline, a CNG harvest and transport solution
is increasingly in demand. That solution will
be using existing technology in new ways, and
so demands new ways of assessing safety,
reliability and fitness for purpose.
The same goes for floating offshore LNG
liquefaction units (FLNG) and floating offshore
storage and regasification units (FSRU). While
technology for processing, liquefying, shipping,
• EPC procedures
• Siena reduces CO2
• Ro-pax delivery
• Chinese railway equipment
150 YEARS
receiving and regasifying LNG ashore are
proven, to do the same at sea requires new tools,
new equipment and new thinking. Cryogenic
hoses, transfer arms, mooring systems, process
equipment and regasifiers that will work in a
marine environment are all part of the new gas
handling world.
Take those elements together, LNG as a fuel
for ships, CNG transportation, development
of FLNG and FSRU. They all require new
thinking, and that is where RINA’s Technology
Qualification process provides a safe and swift
framework for evaluation of the risks and
reliability of each of them.
RINA is a world leader in offshore gas terminals,
first with the Adriatic gravity-based terminal,
now with the world’s first true offshore FSRU,
OLT Livorno. In helping bring both projects
into service safely and efficiently, it has
deployed and refined its risk based approach
to technology qualification. The same rules and
processes can be used for any new technology
or new use of existing technology.
RINA has applied its offshore gas experience
to developing rules and guidance for CNG
transportation, and to develop a comprehensive
set of rules for the use of LNG as a fuel for
ships other than gas carriers. RINA has also
developed a comprehensive set of rules for
offshore FLNG, which side those for offshore
FSRU. Ask RINA about safe, efficient handling
of gas.
dino.cervetto@rina.org

May 2011
Shipowners and banks are under pressure to
make better risk assessments of both their ongoing
businesses and new projects. When risk is
not correctly priced then projects are put at risk.
RINA is a trusted name in risk assessment, and
provides financial and technical due diligence
and risk assessment for major investment
projects in a number of fields. Now it is
stepping up its financial services to shipowners
and banks. To do that most effectively it is
bringing together two partners, and combining
their special expertise with its own risk
assessment expertise and wide shipping and
financial knowledge. Working with Piraeusbased
OceanFinance and Milan-based Venice
Shipping and Logistics, RINA will shortly launch
a portfolio of financial services for owners and
shipping banks, with the key focus on risk
identification and quantification.
Piraeus-based OceanFinance was founded in
2005 to fill the gap in strategic and technological
consulting in the maritime industry. It brings
together maritime economists and marine
engineers to offer innovative solutions to
shipping, with both a sound financial and
technical input. Maro Varvate, Managing Director
of OceanFinance, describes the company as
marine intelligence consultants, there to help
shipping businesses make intelligent and
properly assessed choices. Says Maro, “We’ve
been introducing shipping and shipping banks
FATA EPC CHOOSES RINA
FATA EPC, a Finmeccanica company which is
the Engineering, Procurement and Construction
contractor for an Aluminium Rolling Mill Plant to be
built for Omani company Takamul, has appointed
RINA to issue the technical procedures for the
project. RINA will issue the technical procedures
necessary for FATA EPC to manage all the project
phases in compliance with the final customer’s
requirements, from start to completion.
ReFining FinanCial RiSk aSSeSSment
Fabrizio Vettosi,
Managing Director,
Venice Shipping and
Logistics, Milan, Italy
mauro.giuntoli@rina.org
to econometric modelling, neural networks and
financial engineering modelling and software.
This is a new era for shipping finance and both
owners and banks need new up-to-date tools. We
have launched OFESS, OceanFinance Executive
Support System, which is a performance
measurement software embedding stochastic
calculus and its ability to simulate processes
and explanatory artificial neural networks and
their ability to model causality. It is a powerful
risk management tool. Risk assessment can
do very little to reduce variability because
markets will continue to fluctuate no matter how
advanced risk management gets, but can be
very effective in reducing uncertainty for those
involved in risk-taking decisions.”
According to Maro, RINA is open to new ideas
and ways of working, so by collaborating with
OceanFinance and VSL they can jointly develop
a formal approach to evaluation of financial risk
which is built on OFESS and which will help
first Italian banks, then international ones to
better understand what they are getting into
with shipping projects. “We have already worked
with a major Chinese client,” says Maro. “We are
currently mapping Italian ship finance activity,
but expect to expand this service to Chinese
banks as they move into global markets.”
Fabrizio Vettosi, Managing Director of Venice
Shipping and Logistics, says the company was
set up in 2009 to provide both an investment
vehicle in shipping and logistics and to use
the expertise of the management team to
develop revenues from advisory and consultancy
work in shipping finance. VSL has raised over
$44m for shipping investment and is active
in a number of high profile ship finance deals
and restructurings. Fabrizio himself has over
twenty years’ experience in shipping finance,
SAFETy AND ENVIRONMENT FOR ENI
RINA has certified all the Italian sites of the
Exploration & Production Division of ENI S.p.A. and
its associated company in Ghana for BS OHSAS
18001 (Occupational Safety) and certified the
Ghanaian company for ISO 14001 (Environment).
Work is underway on the certification of ENI
ANGOLA S.p.A. and the headquarters of the
Gas & Power Division, for which an introductory
certification audit has already been successfully
concluded.
jacopo.ferrando@rina.org
Maro Varvate,
Managing Director of
OceanFinance,
Piraeus, Greece
and as advisor, equity investor and lender he
has taken part in some of the major shipping
deals done in Italy. He says, “We are ourselves
investing with shipowners to help them out of
the crisis, providing mezzanine finance, and we
are creating new projects in specific areas with
major partners. We expect to expand further
with small dry cargo vessels and MR tankers
in the next few months. We are also investing
in terminals and logistics businesses, where
we find the expertise of RINA in technical due
diligence very useful. But we see that banks do
not use up-to-date risk assessment tools, and
that is costing shipowners money. So we are
working with OceanFinance and RINA to develop
a risk assessment model which will allow the
banks to correctly price shipping finance.
“I think it will save shipowners fifty to one
hundred basis points on a loan, which is
significant when so many owners are struggling
to emerge from a very difficult market. And the
right risk assessment model will give banks
more confidence to lend to shipping projects.
The combination of our experience and expertise
with the tools of Maro’s team and RINA’s market
and technical knowledge brings serious weight
to the table when it comes to getting finance in
place, and pricing it correctly.”
guido.casella@rina.org
CHINESE RAIlwAy EqUIPMENT TESTS
RINA has recently been awarded two contracts in
China to carry out functional tests on BTM/Antenna
railway signalling equipment. The two Chinese
manufacturers concerned are Zhuzhou Electric
Locomotive Research Institute and Hollysys.
These first certification activities for Chinese
companies related to the high-speed rail sector
open up interesting prospects as the adoption of
the European standards in all the main areas of
the world will lead non-European manufacturers to
become qualified as global suppliers.
alfredo.traverso@rina.org

RINA has developed a standalone set of rules for
the classification of units operating in the Caspian
Sea and in similar areas. The rules address the
severe environmental conditions which include
air temperature ranging from -35°C to +45°C,
sea ice up to 0.6 m thick, shallow water, gas
and oil with a high concentration of toxic gases,
particularly H2S, and a delicate environment to
be carefully protected.
The Italian Province of Siena is now able to
absorb around 83 per cent of its CO2 emissions,
according to the third update of the REGES
(reduction in greenhouse gas emissions) project
in the Province of Siena, presented in January.
The REGES project began in 2006 with the aim
of quantifying the emissions and absorption
of greenhouse gases over Siena Province by
monitoring the trend of emissions into the
POlyETHylENE PIPE wElDERS
RINA has held a workshop for all the RINA Approved
Centres for the training of welders of polyethylene
pipes. The main Italian producers and distributors
of plastic piping, including Fiver, Eurostandard,
FIP and Glynwed were among the companies
present. RINA has been operating under ISO/IEC
17024 accreditation in the field of certification of
personnel operating in the plastic welding sector
since 2002, and the annual number of certificates
issued has reached 1,000.
gabriele.noli@rina.org
iCebReakeR evaCUatiOn OSvS
Using these rules RINA has classed ten Ice
Breaking Emergency Evacuation Vessels
(IBEEV). These vessels are designed to
operate all year round to evacuate personnel
from offshore oil installations. These very
high technology vessels present some specific
challenges. Characteristics of IBEEVs include
the possibility of operation when completely
closed to the outside atmosphere, with the
air for the engines and evacuees supplied by
dedicated compressed air systems and the
ability to transit through floating oil pool fires.
The vessels must be capable of withstanding
explosive overpressure and have the capacity
CHINESE ClIMATE CHANGE
RINA is currently working on forty CDM (Clean
Development Mechanism) projects in China.
Validation and verification activities include
hydropower, wind farm, solar energy, waste heat
recovery, landfill, waste water treatment, nitrous
oxide and other greenhouse gas fields, in which
two projects have been successfully registered at
the UN. Prof. Tao Kanghua, General Manager of
Shanghai Yangtze Delta Investment Consulting
Co, Ltd has visited RINA and expressed great
appreciation for the assessment of the Fuelling
Waste Heat Recovery for Power Generation Project.
jun.zhou@rina.org
to break ice in shallow water. This requires a
special hull design because the hull design of
traditional icebreakers is not compatible with
shallow water hull design.
Siena pROvinCe RedUCeS CO2 emiSSiOnS
atmosphere and absorption by forestry areas.
The provincial administration of Siena was the
first in Europe to adopt a certification system of
this type. The aim of the Province was to adopt a
means able to reliably assess the performance of
the territory’s whole system as regards emissions
and capacity to reabsorb CO2, as a step towards
the goal of “Siena Carbon Free 2015”.
The project, developed by the Ecodynamic Group
of the Department of Chemistry at the University
of Siena, in collaboration with the provincial
Administration’s Environmental Services, was
undertaken with financing from the Monte dei
Paschi di Siena Foundation.
In order to give the results more credibility,
the REGES project requires the greenhouse
andrea.cogliolo@rina.org
gas inventories to be certified and validated
annually by RINA in accordance with the ISO
14064 Standard.
Validation of the territorial reports of greenhouse
gas emissions made by RINA were taken as a
reference by UPI (Union of Italian Provinces)
and used to set up an agreed operational basis
for all Italian provinces.
stefano.grigioni@rina.org
VISEMAR TAkES RO-PAx DElIVERy
Visemar Trasporti S.r.l. has taken delivery of the
980-passenger ro-pax Cartour Epsilon. Built at
Cantiere ENEL Navale achieves Visentini ISO Srl 9001:2008 under RNA class the
24.5 kt RINA vessel has is certified one of the a series management of three system sister
adopted by ENEL coal plants according to
ships. Operated by the Group Caronte & Tourist, it
ISO 9001:2008. The certification covers
can carry 70 cars on 2,680 lane metres of cargo
Secondary Fuel Logistic which goes beyond
space and
generation
will fly the
to include
Italian
fuel
flag
movements
while serving
in
the
Salerno to the Sicily Genoa, route. La Spezia, Fusina, Marghera,
Bastardo, Torrevaldaliga Nord, Sulcis and
Brindisi plants.
massimo.muroni@rina.org

May 2011
Gas demand in Ghana, Togo and Benin is
expected to increase significantly over the next
ten years, due mainly to the expansion of the
energy sector in West Africa. Demand for gas
is currently satisfied by the West Africa Gas
Pipeline but, as that demand has increased, it
has underlined the need for an Alternative Fuel
Facility (AFF) off the Ghanaian coast.
RINA was asked by the Strategic Urban
The 118,000 dwt mini cape bulk carrier Roma
Snug has been delivered by Chinese yard
RINA has recently completed technical
acceptance of the new train for the Milano
Malpensa - Milano Cadorna airport link. The
150 YEARS
www.rina.org
SOlaR plant FinanCe SUppORt
RINA is performing the technical due diligence
of a photovoltaic plant in Turi, Italy, for UniCredit
Leasing. More than 30,000 modules will be
installed, with an investment of Euro 25m. The
WeSt aFRiCa pOWeR plant
Development Alliance (SUDA) to develop a
technical and financial study for the AFF. The
technical analysis included an assessment of
the meteo-climatic and geo-technical features
of the area, preliminary sizing of marine
infrastructures, gas flow assurance model
testing and logistical analysis. Several solutions
were identified, and a financial analysis for all
them developed.
The economic analysis, meanwhile, focused on
expenditure and running costs, and included
SnUg Cape CHineSe deliveRy
Zhejiang Shipbuilding Co, in Ningbo to Romebased
shipowner SNUG S.r.l. The 65,950 gt
vessel is 254 m loa and powered by an MAN
B&W 6S60 MC-C DA 13560 Kw main engine.
A sister ship, Asti Snug, also built to RINA
class, follows in October 2011. The company
SaFety CHeCkS FOR malpenSa tRain
Alstom CSA ETR245 is a five-coach electric
train with a top speed of 160 km/h. RINA
provided design verification on behalf of the
Italian Safety Authority and was responsible
for all the on-line tests required for technical
acceptance, including dynamics, braking
performance, electromagnetic emissions and the
Editorial Office: RINA S.p.A.
Via Corsica 12, Genova, 16128
Tel. +39 010 53851 Fax +39 010 5351000 E-mail: editorial@rina.org
Publication n° 26/73 dated 14/4/1973 registered with the Court of Genova
Editor in charge: Marcello Lucentini
expected annual electricity output is about 10
million KWh.
michele.nicora@rina.org
sensitivity analyses and a preliminary listing of
all the major issues that will have to be included
in the AFF Project’s contractual documents.
The results of the study were presented by
Angelo Lo Nigro during the 19th Donors’
Co-ordination Meeting organised by the West
African Power Pool on May 4, 2011, in Cotonou,
Benin. The study was submitted to the pool’s
technical committee after the meeting.
andrea.sola@rina.org
also built two general cargo ships, Lucy Snug
and Karoline Snug at China’s Yangzhou Ryuwa
Shipbuilding Co to RINA class. Both vessels
were delivered in 2010.
mario.moretti@rina.org
on-board control-command equipment (Sistema
Tecnologico di Bordo-STB.) The project involved
close collaboration between the experts in rolling
stock from RINA’s Railway Department and the
specialists from the STB laboratory.
alfredo.traverso@rina.org
Elefo
printed by Tipografia Viscardi - Alessandria ( Italy )