When industry and science align

Tor Atle Eiken of OceanSaver explains the background, “If you have had a vessel keel laid after the first of January this year, you have to install a ballast water treatment – BWT –system within the date the convention enters into force,” which means a year after the convention is ratified. He adds this has helped to open the market up – many owners are now starting to install BWT systems pushed by the new rules.

Paul Holthus of the World Ocean Council says, “People have been waiting for a clear signal that the convention is going to come into force, the discussion has heated up now that there are over 30 ratifications – although it’s still awaiting one major ratification to bring it over the tonnage requirement.”

The good news is that the treaty does come into force worldwide. The potential patchwork of regulations at national or state level would have been a real problem, so there’s been a lot of interest in a truly global standard.

The bad news is that retrofitting is not ‘light engineering’ by any means. Further, Mr Eiken points out that although some people are reserving build space for BWT systems, it only has a limited benefit because pumps, main switch board, piping and cables also need to be modified.

While there will be a ‘grace’ period to give the industry room to comply, people are going to need to get their vessels retrofitted in fairly short order. Mr Holthus adds, “It will almost certainly create a bit of a challenge, as the demands are large. It would be a lot more efficient to do it on the dry docking cycle, but the timing, when to make the commitment, has been a tricky one.

This goes for the slow movement of R&D as well, which could have lowered costs yet further. Overall, the investment required for 50,000 vessels is estimated to be somewhere in the region of US$30bn – but the perennial ‘will they – won’t they’ on the ratification of these things does often slow down the very research which could yield benefits.

It’s usually a circular situation as governments and organisations have to base their calculations on the available technology. Unfortunately technology tries to keep its losses to a minimum by going for solutions to issues that are already on the horizon. “More options certainly create a better market in general,” says Mr Holthus.

It has to be said that despite this, the industry has worked to develop unity within the industry and alignment with government and environmental concerns. “One of the key aspects of this is that the shipping industry has worked collectively with both the IMO and the science community to develop a long term global solution to the problem, and there’s a lot of good lessons in this. We could use more of this international alignment, collaboration and research.”

However, the invasive species battle’s not won yet. Mr Holthus points out that there’s a need for shipping and other industries to be working on biofouling, as alien species can colonise things like oil rigs, dredging equipment, fishing vessels – in fact, virtually any kind of marine infrastructure that gets moved around. “If there’s one sector being clean, but the others haven’t shaped up it won’t work. It only takes one vessel with a viable population for the problem to start,” he says.