Executive Viewpoint

When shopping for a new car, you’ll surely notice its pristine finish. No nicks. No fading. No worries about the protection offered by that exterior coating. But what if you learned that you’d have to repaint the car the moment you drove it off the lot? You probably wouldn’t buy it.

Unfortunately, many offshore platform owners are facing this dilemma with newbuilds. They’re buying brand-new coated steel that often needs to be recoated almost immediately after being assembled into a platform. At the production site, owners must then jockey personnel to accommodate the unexpected maintenance while also trying to begin operations.

The scenario is costly and highly inefficient. However, it can be remedied on three fronts. First, owners should always specify high-performance coatings that offer long life cycles in marine environments. Second, they should not accept a shipyard’s request to change the specified product without rigorous vetting. Finally, owners need to focus on long-term operational savings by aligning the goals of their construction and maintenance divisions.

Better specifications, better performance. Coating maintenance is a given for offshore platforms, due to the saltwater environment. However, platform owners can extend maintenance cycles by specifying high-performance coating systems designed to maintain long-term protection in marine environments. Specifying such products may increase initial project costs, but their inherent extended maintenance cycles will more than offset any price premiums. Plus, since coatings represent roughly 0.25% of the cost of a large offshore project, any initial cost-savings associated with a lesser-quality coating system will be insignificant to the total project cost. Typically, this difference is less than 0.06% of the total project cost, (e.g., $30 dollars added to the price of a $50,000 car).

Even with high-performance coatings in place, platform crews are on constant watch for signs of corrosion and coating failures. When crews find deficiencies, they must fit multi-day coating maintenance projects into the platform’s operating schedule, which can be challenging, due to limited platform occupancies.

While platform owners should expect to schedule coatings maintenance periodically over the lifetime of a platform, most owners don’t anticipate that they’ll need to start a maintenance protocol on day one. The reason they might, can be traced directly to shipyards, where the steel was coated. It can even be pinpointed to the products used, which in many cases are not the ones specified by the owner.

This is a common scenario. The owner’s specification will identify a specific coating system for the project, and the shipyard will then request changes to the specification. However, a shipyard’s suggestions are typically for its own benefit, so it can use products that are less expensive and faster to apply. That argument often makes sense to the purchasing arm of the platform owner, which will be happy to save money and time. But here’s the problem: the alternative coating may not be as robust as the one specified.

For example, shipyards are more likely to choose coating systems designed for marine vessels, which need to be refreshed at least every five years—likely much sooner. Conversely, the owner’s specified high-performance coating may last 10 to 15 years, or more. Because the platform owner doesn’t know the alternative product has a much shorter life cycle, it may approve the change request. Therefore, the steel will be coated with a product that barely lasts long enough for the rig to be assembled and placed into service before requiring touchups—or a complete recoat.

Better alignment, better results. Unfortunately, platform operators regularly accept change requests for non-specified products. They’re especially prone to making this potentially costly mistake when their construction and maintenance divisions aren’t in synch. The two groups typically have different objectives. Construction mangers are focused on short-term cost-savings during the building phase, and operations managers are determined to reduce long-term costs. These interests compete, because a less-expensive coating system will reduce initial costs, but it also will reduce maintenance timeframes and, therefore, greatly increase life cycle costs.

During bidding, the construction group will be looking for a low bid, based on its specifications, but it also will be open to bids that reduce costs by changing the coating system. The operations group, however, will want the applicator to use the specified system, because it knows this coating will help to minimize lifetime maintenance costs. The only mystery is how significant those savings may be. Unfortunately, the small, tangible upfront cost-savings associated with an alternative coating system often overshadow the harder-to-define, larger long-term maintenance savings that would be realized by sticking with the specified product. 

Better strategy, better outcomes. Simply put: the better the coating system, the longer the maintenance interval, and the lower the lifetime costs. To ensure the longevity of a new offshore platform, the platform owners’ construction and operations managers should collaborate on their operational goals, specify high-performance coatings at the outset, and only agree to change requests, if the suggested coating has equivalent properties. In doing so, owners should realize longer-term coating performance and a reduced, total cost of ownership. Plus, they’ll ensure their brand-new platform won’t need to be recoated immediately after being constructed.

That sounds like an offshore platform construction package that’s worth buying, unlike that new car that’s destined for a paint booth the moment it leaves the dealership.