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Wärtsilä has been awarded a five-year technical management contract covering dual-fuel engines on six LNG carriers. The contract has been placed by the operator Ceres LNG Services Ltd., a Greek ship management company and a major marine service provider in LNG shipping.

The five-year contract covers engine Dynamic Maintenance Planning for a total of 24 Wärtsilä 50DF dual-fuel engines on the six LNG carriers. With this order, a total of 80 Wärtsilä 50DF engines powering LNG carriers are under Wärtsilä Dynamic Maintenance Planning contracts.

According to Wärtsilä, Dynamic Maintenance Planning offers owners a significant reduction in operating costs by applying predictive maintenance principles and by optimizing engine performance.

"Wärtsilä's Dynamic Maintenance Planning will enable our company and our customers to benefit from optimized availability, increased lifecycle efficiency, and reduced maintenance costs for our engines. Wärtsilä's technology, global presence, and local support will help us to achieve this task," said Sallis Theofanis, Ceres LNG Technical Manager.

Dynamic Maintenance Planning is based on the Condition Monitoring (CM) system developed by Wärtsilä. The engines' operational data and parameters are continuously fed into a database and then evaluated at Wärtsilä's CBM (Condition Based Maintenance) centre. The maintenance needs are thus predicted based on the actual condition of the equipment, while the optimal operational parameters can also be determined.

According to Wärtsilä, the flexibility of the system - in conjunction with annual visits and inspections onboard the vessels, allows maintenance intervals to be amended according to actual need. Service work and spare parts availability can be arranged accordingly, which enables better service planning and the avoidance of unnecessary costs and downtime.

"With Dynamic Maintenance Planning we combine the latest in condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and efficient maintenance planning, with the latest in engine technology to achieve a complete system solution that maximises the availability of the engines without compromising reliability," said Dimitris Mitsopoulos, Account Manager, Wärtsilä Services in Greece.