The Liberian Maritime Administration has submitted a proposal to 70th session of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee’s (MEPC) this week that asks for an extension for the fitting of ballast water management systems (BWMS) to vessels in line with Ballast Water Management Convention requirements.
The proposal in question specifically requests that ships have additional time beyond 2020 to install an IMO compliant BWMS as required under the Ballast Water Management Convention that will enter into force on September 8, 2017.
Liberia says that the proposal would ensure that there are enough BWMS to comply with the regulatory requirements and guarantee that adequate dockyard capacity would be available.
Currently there is uncertainty as to whether IMO Guidelines and the process for Type Approval are detailed enough to ensure that BWMS have gone through challenging testing to certify that they will meet the required discharge performance standards.
In response to concerns, the Liberian Administration has identified limitations following additional assessments of IMO type-approved BWMS, which have now been listed on the Liberian Type Approval Certificate issued to manufacturers, helping ship owners to make informed decisions on BWMS selection.
Furthermore, there are no BWMS that have been granted type approval by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) according to their more rigorous standards, and it could be several years before there is approved equipment ready for installation. This means that there may be tens of thousands of ships needing to install existing systems that are not fully compliant with the Convention standards.
David Pascoe, Senior Vice-President, Operations & Standards at LISCR, the US-based manager of the Liberian Registry commented: “The compliance dates for ships are linked to the date a ship’s International Oil Pollution Prevention (IOPP) certificate is renewed after 8 September 2017. In order to allow more time for new systems to become available and for shipowners to decide which system to invest in and install (bearing in mind that the cost to retrofit a BWMS is estimated to be up to $5m per ship) Liberia has proposed that shipowners may decide if they wish to renew a ship’s IOPP certificate earlier than scheduled in order to have an additional 4-to-5 years to see if new equipment becomes available.”
“It is by no means certain that adequate new systems will be commercially available in sufficient quantities within this period. Additionally, based on a study by Liberia, the dockyard capacity to fit systems on board ships will fall well short of peak demand, expected to occur in 2020-2021” Pascoe continued.
May in the industry hold the belief that it does not make sense for ships to continue to install IMO type-approved BWMS that may require modification in the future to meet the tighter and more stringent guidelines as in the case of the USCG requirements. It therefore makes sense to allow ships additional time, beyond 2020, to ensure that there are enough systems that are fully compliant as well as the required dockyard capacities for installation.
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