Having lived and worked in Hamburg – the heart of the German maritime industry – for the last 25 years or so, I’ve been fortunate enough to have a front row seat to watch the sector’s growth.

From the outside, you can see these changes clearly – the number of shipping containers has continually risen since the port welcomed its first in 1968 [1]. In fact, Hamburg saw a record 2.9% rise in cargo throughput across the initial nine months of 2021 .
However, it’s the changes on the inside – below a vessel’s deck – that I’m often more interested in. After all, these changes, perhaps more than any others, are what prove just how far the industry has come in recent times.

Change with the tides or risk falling behind
For a perfect example of this, you only need to take one look at the world of marine maintenance. While oil samples will always remain an important way of monitoring your engine, it’s pivotal that – beyond the basic properties tested by all regular sampling services – additional properties associated with your specific lubricant type and its application equipment information are also screened.

This is something that requires expert knowledge and in-depth insights, however, so is best done by using a highly digitalised, advanced sample and maintenance tool to manage the process. Meaning, gone are the days where ship maintenance pivoted from simply checking OEM manuals to performing intermittent oil sampling, and then hoping for the best in between.

Instead, because today’s components are more complex – and varied – than ever, maintenance has to be equally as advanced. Engines require continuous readings to maintain optimal performance and cleanliness, while ensuring operations are compliant. This also allows for quick intervention to prevent machinery failure if things do start to go wrong.

The products that fuel and lubricate these systems have evolved too. With regulatory targets to meet, and as the industry transitions to a mosaic of fuels, lubricant options are adapting accordingly, delivering robust protection and performance amid an operating environment that has arguably never been more demanding.

With engines, fuels and lubricants working harder, to drive efficiency, close collaboration between ship owners, operators and lubricant producers becomes paramount. Because, without the technical know-how to get the most from their equipment, shipping businesses risk losing out operationally, financially and environmentally.

Why intelligent monitoring is the clever choice
Fortunately, technological advancements mean ship owners and operators now have the ability to fit all these pieces – higher-performing engines, future fuels, advanced lubrication solutions – together, to the benefit of their bottom line.

For example, today’s maintenance services now allow ships to conduct intelligent monitoring. Depending on the tools at your disposal, this provides the ability to have continuous (or at least far more frequent) real-time updates at your fingertips, so action can be taken as quickly as possible – often before an issue even has time to fully develop.

In doing so, these programmes collect a wealth of data on engine and oil performance, gathering trends over time and generating insights that can be used to inform future maintenance decisions.

This also means that you can benchmark component performance against:
• manufacturer or model-specific profiles;
• the latest recommendations from the manufacturer’s service letters; and
• specific engine performance markers and characteristics.

As a result, intelligent engine monitoring programmes, such as Shell LubeMonitor and VitalyX, are quickly becoming a critical piece of the modern operator’s toolkit.

Shell LubeMonitor
At its core, Shell LubeMonitor is a two-stroke engine monitoring programme designed to help operators strike the right balance between reducing costs and maintaining reliability.
Whereas in the past, operators may have felt compelled to focus on reducing cylinder lubrication feed rates despite potentially risking engine performance, direct monitoring uses both onboard and onshore tests to help identify the lowest possible feed rate and optimum wear rate combination.

These in-depth, technical insights – based on running data, laboratory analysis and engine inspections – can be accessed via the Shell Lube Monitor app or online portal, ensuring visibility of vital data regardless of a vessel’s level of connectivity.

With an increased number of newly designed and more flexible dual fuel engines, alongside the offering of retrofitting options, these insights are becoming more useful over time. Because, while it is probably fair to say that every single engine/fuel combination has its own challenges, there are several common factors that impact performance, such as higher thermal stress and a greater risk of deposit build-up – both of which can result in engine damage.
This makes the monitoring of cleanliness increasingly important, which is something that is not picked up by standard lubricant analysis.
VitalyX

Meanwhile, VitalyX is a product of the collaboration between Shell and Bently Nevada, a Baker Hughes business, and is suitable for all other vessels.

Powered by Shell Remote Sense – our oil condition monitoring service – it combines the industrial internet of things (IIoT) with artificial intelligence (AI) to provide ship owners and operators with insights based on real-time sensor data. Through both proprietary algorithms and machine learning, VitalyX delivers a detailed picture of machine health and accompanying recommendations.

This is a useful addition to the standard predictive maintenance capabilities that operators often lean on to monitor critical machinery. Because, in turn, it helps to identify unseen, lubrication-related issues before they can contribute to performance – or asset – loss, helping to lower maintenance costs, increase efficiencies and optimise equipment health on board a single ship or throughout an entire fleet.

2050 is just on the horizon

While it’s very unlikely that I, myself, will be working in another 25 years from now, one certainty is that the shipping industry – whether in Hamburg or beyond – will continue to change and evolve.
That’s because the energy transition demands this change.

While many sectors eye 2050, between the IMO’s emissions reduction strategy revisions in 2023 and EEXI/CII regulations to optimise the vessels of today, marine OEMs, service providers, ship owners and operators alike should be looking to push these changes through sooner rather later.

All of which means, engines will continue to become more efficient, lubrication formulations more complex, and monitoring services more intelligent as a result.

I certainly hope that the outcome will see ship owners and operators spending less time on maintaining their systems and more time progressing their operations.

Learn more about how Shell’s intelligent monitoring programmes can support your ship operations here
Source: By Marcus Schaerer, GM Technical & Services, Shell Marine