LR commences coatings training in China

Hong Kong: Lloyd's Register has just started its first training course designed to qualify coating inspectors employed at China's leading shipyards to meet the global requirements for the Performance Standard for Protective Coatings (PSPC).
NACE International, whose courses are recognised by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to deliver PSPC training, will provide its Coating Inspector Program (CIP) at Lloyd's Register's new Marine Training Institute in Shanghai.
"In January, Lloyd's Register was the first to offer a series of seminars around China and we used the feedback to develop our gap-analysis service, which gives the yards a clear path to PSPC compliance," said Nick Brown, General Manager, Marine Business Development, China, for Lloyd's Register Asia. "Together with International Paint (Shanghai), we have delivered more than 30 gap analyses to shipyards across China. Demand for this service has been strong, with new enquiries extending across China and, more recently, to Taiwan, Korea and Japan."
"The feedback from our gap analysis indicated that the yards in China felt there was a critical lack of coating inspectors with the qualifications required by the PSPC, and an urgent requirement to deliver the courses in Mandarin," Brown says. "Their demand for training created the impetus for this initiative."
A full program of NACE CIP courses is intended to be delivered in Mandarin throughout 2008, helping Lloyd's Register's clients to directly meet the prescriptive requirements of PSPC inspector qualifications.
The PSPC calls for shipyards, coating manufacturers, ship owners, and classification societies to ensure that protective coating systems in water ballast tanks are specified, qualified, applied, and inspected throughout the ship's construction. It calls for minimum qualifications, specifically identifying NACE as an official entity to certify coating inspectors. [14/12/07]

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