Italian ship owner Grimaldi Group SpA will install United Kingdom-based Silverstream Technologies proprietary air lubrication technology – which reduces frictional resistance between water and hull via a thin layer of micro-bubbles on a vessels flat bottom – on 12 vessels being built over the next three years. U.S. testing, instrumentation and technical support provider Koehler Instrument Co. signed a distribution and service agreement with German tribological modeling, simulation and analysis company Optimol Instruments Pruftechnik GmbH for its existing SRV greases test system users in North and Central America, as well as some Middle East and South East Asia markets.