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Odfjell becomes pilot partner in promising ROV technology for improved hull cleaning

Odfjell has partnered with ECOsubsea to trial their next-generation, ultra-efficient hull-cleaning robot, advancing sustainable practices in maritime innovation.

Photo from ECOSubsea

Why is hull cleaning needed?

While underwater hull cleaning is a well-known concept in shipping, its specifics may be less familiar. Hull fouling occurs when unwanted marine organisms—such as barnacles, algae, slime, and mussels—accumulate on a ship’s hull.

Despite Odfjell’s investments in advanced anti-fouling coating systems, marine organisms remain inevitable over time. This buildup increases drag, leading to higher operating costs and greater emissions.

To address this challenge, Odfjell introduced an innovative hull cleaning program in 2014, enabling us to tackle fouling at an early stage. Since then, we have established a global network of trusted vendors and conducted hundreds of hull inspections, propeller polishing, and hull cleaning operations.

As you might expect, these services involve expenses, but the benefits—improved vessel efficiency, lower emissions, and long-term savings—far outweigh these costs.

Although hull cleaning has been a commercially available service in most shipping hubs for decades, it has remained a manual practice, with divers in the water as the preferred method—primarily due to lower costs and technical barriers, or, to put it simply, its proven both costly and complex to develop remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) capable of navigating the many angles of a ship’s hull.

This is all about to change. These days, we witness a global shift toward robotics, driven mainly by new port requirements aimed at improving safety and combating the spread of invasive species, but also due to speed efficiency results and cleaning quality.

Photo from ECOsubsea

Visionary Norwegian brothers and emerging regulations pave way for ROV innovation

ECOsubsea, a start-up headquartered in Western Norway, was quick to recognize the emerging global regulations and became an early innovator of robotics in hull cleaning. 

Their story began in 2008 with two brothers and a forward-leading vision. Tor and Klaus Østervold anticipated, a decade ahead of time, that global regulators would inevitably address the irreversible negative impacts of invasive species and hull coating pollutants.

From their parents' garage, they began designing the first prototype of an automated cleaning system that could be deployed underwater. Unlike traditional methods relying on divers, their vision involved robotics to clean the hull and a system to fully collect the residues.

However, the journey was anything but smooth. The first prototypes faced technical difficulties, skepticism from the shipping industry, and financial strain. Convincing ship operators to use costly ROV's over divers proved difficult. 

ECOsubsea’s breakthrough came when certain states (New Zealand, California, and more recently, Australia) began enforcing compulsory biofouling regulations and stricter pollution controls were introduced in many European ports, banning traditional hull cleaning methods.

It is now commonly required that biofouling organisms and antifouling pollutants be collected in a closed-loop system. With this momentum, ECOsubsea scaled up and is today recognized as one of the leading technology companies in sustainable hull cleaning. 

 

Odfjell signs up as pilot partner

Odfjell has been following ECOsubsea’s progress with interest over time.

“Underwater hull cleaning has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, driven by advancements in technology.

Traditionally, hull cleaning relied on divers performing manual operations underwater. Now, we see the emergence of technology start-ups. Powered by capital, they intend to disrupt this market with robotics and streamline the operations by embracing transparency.”

Kristoffer Ramstad, Manager Fleet Performance and Digitalization, Odfjell

Because of differences in location and their use of ROVs loaded from trucks, with access limitations in terminals, a direct partnership was not a good fit at first. But in 2024, after more than 5,000 hull cleaning operations under their belt, ECOsubsea announced plans to expand their business to Singapore—one of Odfjell’s key hubs.

As part of this move, they also unveiled their next-generation, ultra-efficient hull-cleaning robot.

To support new innovations in hull cleaning, Odfjell signed up as a pilot partner.

Beyond acting as a sponsor and sharing operational insights, we provided hands-on assistance by having Port Captain Odd Arne Hansen on-site to help fine-tune the concept specifically for chemical tankers.

“Safety is always our top priority at Odfjell, along with improving fleet performance and reducing our environmental footprint. Partnering with ECOsubsea on their new hull cleaning ROV is a crucial step to achieve these goals." 

Odd Arne Hansen, Port Captain, Asia Pacific

The decision to nominate Odfjell as a pilot partner goes beyond Odfjell’s reputation in the maritime sector. As Tor Østervold, CEO of ECOsubsea, explained:

"If we can clean a chemical tanker, we can clean any vessel. It’s not that chemical tankers are harder to clean, but their schedules are constantly changing. In port, tankers frequently shift from one berth to another, making them difficult to schedule. If we can figure out how to serve Odfjell without disruption or delaying operations, we might have a workable solution for the entire market." 

 

A key achievement was the successful commercial cleaning of the Bow Cedar, which was completed in just two hours without impacting the vessel’s port schedule.

 

The new service offers several benefits for our fleet: It enables hull cleaning in challenging conditions—including currents of up to 2 knots—ensuring that cleaning can be performed in situations where divers would face safety risks. This capability reduces operational risks and enhances the safety of all involved.

“We are usually not in the position of delaying the vessel for the sole purpose of hull cleaning – and if doing so, these operations are ending up extremely costly due to loss of time. With drones or ROV’s, we can perform operations where divers are not allowed and clean the vessels’ hull at a significantly reduced time.” 

Vegard Marken, Senior Fleet Performance Analyst, Odfjell

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