Over several years tankers have been converted to offshore oil and gas producers, FPSOs. Tankers
are often equipped with Impressed Current Cathodic Protection with few anodes based on regularly
dry docking for maintenance and re-coating. In most cases these CP systems remain installed, or a
similar “marginally type” are designed by the shipyard. In addition to the ICCP, several sections,
such as sea chests and turret/moon pools are protected by galvanic CP systems. Experiences have
shown that the galvanic CP system will override the ICCP systems the first years in operation and
actually protect the entire hull if the standard recommended settings for the ICCP are followed. This
may result in insufficient capacity on the galvanic CP system for its dedicated areas after years in
service. Further, experiences have shown that, even if the ICCP as per current capacity is sufficient
to protect the hull, the CP at the latter stage of life will not fulfil polarisation requirements. The paper
will show how Boundary Element Method (BEM) modelling is useful to optimise the ICCP settings
to work with galvanic CP systems, and further, to verify how a typical tanker ship CP design is not
adequate for an offshore production facility.
Keywords; Impressed Current Cathodic Protection, “tanker CP design”, FPSO hulls, Boundary
Element Method CP modelling