Bureau Veritas Marine Division Key Facts 2007

•BV’s classed fleet grew by 934 ships and 7.3m gt, to end the year on 7,919 ships totalling 58.2m gt. The average fleet age fell to 15.8 years, and detention rates globally fell again by 10 per cent. Many of the new ships were newbuildings, but there were also significant transfers in of tonnage. •BV’s market share of global newbuilding orders grew to 12 per cent, with strong performance in passenger ships, where it took 18 per cent, in bulkers, where it took 14 per cent and in special purpose ships, where it took 30 per cent. •BV’s annual new orders for newbuildings almost doubled in 2007, up from 9.7m gt in 2006 to just over 18m gt in 2007. That brings BV’s total orderbook for newbuildings to over 30m gt, about fifty per cent of the current fleet in service. •Working closely with Chinese design companies to provide rapid implementation of the Common Structural Rules for bulk carriers gave BV a massive lead in bulk carrier orders in China. •A Modular CAP system was introduced. The new Bureau Veritas Condition Assessment Programme has been thoroughly revised in discussions with charterers and commercial managers, and now meets not only all the needs of oil companies and charterers, but also covers LNG and LPG carriers, bulk carriers and container ships. •Bureau Veritas was awarded the classification of the new French aircraft carrier, one of a series of three to be built under an Anglo-French agreement. •BV has formed a high level HSE committee to streamline and develop environmental notations which will make the CLEANSHIP notation the most comprehensive available. It will be modular, with full IMO compliance as basic, moving up to include eco-friendly propulsion, cold ironing, ballast water management, emission control, vapour control and all other environmental impacts. •The lifetime of the ship’s structure will be easier to manage with the roll out of the VeriSTAR Hull Life Cycle tool, which has been validated in 2007 and will be available to owners in 2008. It will provide a simple 3D model of the ship’s structure including all thickness measurements, pictures and inspection data presented in a user-friendly manner. •BV was awarded the classification of the world’s largest semi-submersible, the Petrobras P55, and a large number of FPSO and FSU contracts were entrusted to BV.