South Korea's Dongkuk Marine, Pusan serves as the management company for a number of vessels of PT Berlian Laju Tanker (BLT), a large shipping company based in Indonesia. Recently Dongkuk chartered BLT's chemical tanker Ulupi to BP, which may be the first MarineLine vessel to be chartered to BP in Indonesia.

The Ulupi, built in 1999, is a 6,690 dwt vessel with 12 tanks. In a retrofit application, the original tanks, where were lined with zinc coating, were blasted clean and then re-coated in China in April 2007 with Advanced Polymer Coating (APC)'s MarineLine tank coating system, in an area encompassing some 4,500 square meters. MarineLine is the patented coating system that withstands all the liquid cargoes listed in the IBC Code -- the only coating material that offers this level of performance.

The Captain of the Ulupi, Sung Tae Lee, explains the benefits of MarineLine. "The cleaning condition of the MarineLine coating is better than stainless steel tankers. Cleaning is fast and simple, no contamination. MarineLine is the best tank coating of any of the cargo-related paints. With the versatility of MarineLine in handling the complete range of cargoes, loading rates have been halved because there are no prohibitions. BP SIngapore checked the conditions of the MarineLine coating in the cargo holds and were surprised at the result -- thus leading to the success in chartering the vessel for service by BP."

The Ulupi is one of 64 vessels in the BLT fleet, with total tonnage of more than 1.71m dwt. The company's theme, "Delivers with Safety, Competitiveness and Timeliness," fits in well with the capabilities and long term performance record of the MarineLine coating system since its inception in 1994, and will serve BP well.