New timetable may ease installation bottleneck

The relaxation of the IMO convention compliance schedule will not affect the US Coast Guard’s (USCG) implementation of the ballast water discharge standard final rule published on March 23, 2013. The USCG is also proceeding with implementation of a type approval program for ballast water management systems. At this point, two Independent Laboratories (IL) have been accepted for type approval testing (NSF International and DNV in conjunction with test facility DHI), and several additional applications are under review or discussion.

The USCG has not yet issued type approval to any system, nor received a formal application, although it has accepted 10 foreign type-approved systems as alternate management systems (AMS). These include two from Alfa Laval and one from each of Panasia, Ecochlor, Headway Technology, Hyde Marine, RWO, Severn Trent de Nora, NK Company and Sunrui. AMS installed on ships before the implementation date may be used in lieu of ballast water exchange and for up to five years after the ship’s compliance date for meeting the discharge standard in the discharge standard final rule.

“The Coast Guard expects that manufacturers of AMS will seek and gain Coast Guard type approval, so that installed ballast water treatment systems operated as AMS will gain type approved status and be usable by ships for longer than the five year temporary acceptance period,” says Dr Richard Everett of the USCG Environmental Standards Division. “If an AMS does not gain Coast Guard type approval, the five year period provides the shipowners with a reasonable opportunity to replace the system with one that has been type approved.”

According to Tim Wilkins, environmental manager at Intertanko, the US position will soften the peaks in the installation bottleneck predicted for 2016, 2017 and 2018. “The US has unwittingly caused a little bit of smoothing of these peaks because those vessels wanting to trade in the US will all start installing systems. Even if it is only several hundred vessels, it is still some vessels being taken out of the big peak.”

However, Mr Wilkins points out that the extended implementation is really a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ and that if countries such as Germany and Denmark who were disappointed with the result, insisted, they could ignore it. “There is always that element of uncertainty.”

The proposed schedule is anticipated to significantly ease the retrofit burden – more than one might realise, says Bill Burroughs, Balpure product line manager at Severn Trent de Nora. “The stretching out of the implementation dates will allow older vessels to make one last survey cycle before being scrapped early – effectively eliminating a large number of actual installations. One might appreciate this even more when thought thorough completely. These same numbers of vessels, give or take a few thousand, would never have ballast water treatment systems installed anyway – their residual values just cannot make the economic cut to justify the expensive retrofit. These vessels would otherwise be scrapped even earlier – a situation even more burdensome to the industry. With the longer schedule window, more effective use of these vessels can be realised to reduce the losses of inevitable early retirement.”

Clarkson Research Services estimated in June that treatment systems have been fitted to 814 vessels out of the 86,800 vessels that they monitor – fewer than 1&%. The company estimates 653 vessels – about 14% – of vessels on order will have ballast water treatment systems. Information on orders is not always as readily available as that on delivered vessels, so this figure is an estimate.

With so many ships still to be fitted, some see delay as inevitable. “It certainly seems that everybody is holding back as much as they can,” says Petter Syse, marketing director for engineering company Instrumental Marine Services. “No matter where it ends up, it is highly likely that cost will rise and installation delays may be experienced.”

Jurrien Baretta, business development manager for Goltens agrees. “It will not make a lot of difference whether to install during a renewal survey or during either an intermediate or renewal, as was the original schedule. In both cases planning and preparing is required. It gives a bit of additional air to stretch it out with a further 2.5 years so perhaps better preparation is possible. However, I suspect that it will mostly lead to further postponement by shipowners so they will still have trouble being ready in time.” The advantage of installation at sea will not be lost with the new timetable, she says, as in dry dock there tends to be a large number of jobs going on. “Many yards don’t have specialised experience with ballast water treatment system retrofits so it takes much more effort, hours and cost.”