By
Cherie Rowlands |
In autumn 2012, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) welcomed governments’ acceptance at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Marine Environmental Protection Committee that there are significant issues with implementing the Ballast Water Management Convention (BWM).
Immediately following that meeting, ICS secretary general Peter Hinchcliffe said: “It is good that many governments seem to accept shipowners’ arguments that it will be very difficult indeed to retrofit tens of thousands of ships within the timeline of two or three years after entry into force as the Convention text currently requires. IMO has agreed to develop an IMO Assembly Resolution for adoption in 2013, to facilitate implementation to work smoothly. It is vital that we ease the log jam by spreading implementation over five years rather than two or three.”
Hinchliffe’s concerns were repeated almost verbatim a couple of months later at the annual tripartite meeting of the representatives of the worldwide Association of Shipbuilders, Classification Societies and Shipowners, in Busan, Korea in December 2012. ICS chairman Masamichi Morooka said: “We are in full support of the IMO and intentions behind the BWM. However, given where we are today, we need to re-address both the timeline and the Approval requirements defined in the G8 guidelines in order to ensure that we achieve the real intentions of the Convention without unnecessary costs and unintended compliance issues. We need to urgently engage with both the IMO and the individual governments in order to address these issues.”
Two global suppliers of ballast water systems – Wärtsilä and GEA Westfalia Separator Group – offer their thoughts for cruise ships and ferries in regard to adopting the D-2 standard by 2017. Wärtsilä ballast water systems director Dr Joe Thomas says: “There is now sufficient technology choice available to owner-operators to tailor BWMS solutions to specific ship operational requirements. Some are naturally more proactive than others. Some passenger ships already have systems installed and Wärtsilä is in advanced discussion with a number of cruise and ferry owner-operators regarding installation in advance of 2017. In our experience there is a preference for UV-based ballast water treatment technology, although other treatment technologies such as electro-chlorination (EC) remain of interest.”
Sven Jadzinski, senior product manager marine, GEA Westfalia Separator Group, agrees that adoption depends on the individual mindset. He says: “GEA has several clients that are starting now. Others are waiting until the very last day. There will be bottleneck in terms of production capacities, both skilled engineers and blue-collar staff, and for system installation once the ratification has come into force.
“The major challenge is to establish in-house competence in order to compare the technologies available on the market to select the best fit for the ship. Once this decision has been taken, a partner must be identified in order to start the real work: amendments of ballast water schemas, approval by the classification society, surveys on ships, preparation of workshop drawings, system installation and finally commissioning. All these steps must be coordinated while the ship is sailing on the open sea.”
With regard to uptake of the respective companies’ ballast water systems, interest has been steadily increasing and more so in the past year.
“Interest in the Wärtsilä Aquarius range of BWMS has grown over the last 18 months and, more significantly, since receipt of type approval for AquariusUV in December 2012, from across a wide cross-section of the cruise and ferry industry,” says Thomas.
Jadzinski comments: “The BallastMaster ultraV is designed for vessels classified as ships with a low dependency on ballast water such as cruise ships and ferries, and interest has increased after more than half of people that came to our stand at SMM 2012 visited because of the system, with the possibility that several orders could be finalised soon.”
Thomas points out that it is in the interests of ship operators to act earlier rather than later: “Wärtsilä is gearing up BWMS resource to meet both the manufacturing and project execution demand and would encourage early planning to ensure that sufficient installation resource is provided to meet the fleet-specific time lines,” he says.
In a fitting final word on the issues surrounding BWM, Jadzinski believes port state control is an area that should also be addressed. He says: “What needs to be improved is information on port state control (PSC). Suppliers such as GEA prepared by inventing type-approved technologies and having begun several years ago, are now in a position to offer equipment that fits. Therefore, it is time for the ratification process to move on. Being at a standstill since September 2011 is hardly supporting the decision process and creates more questions than answers. The same is applicable for PSC regarding rules on how sampling and analysis will be undertaken when a ship is in port. What is the process when bacterial content is found to exceed the defined limits? GEA is looking forward to another interesting year with more answers to come in terms of ballast water treatment and, finally, protection of the oceans.”