Page 17 - INTERCARGO - Annual Review 2019/2020
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Ballast Water Management
Prior to the entry into force of The implementation challenges of the Convention especially
relate to retrofitting ballast water management (BWM) sys-
the International Convention for tems on to the existing bulk carrier fleet, the performance of
the Control and Management of the systems at sea; the operating conditions of the vessel;
and the levels of support available for these systems e.g. the
Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments worldwide availability of service engineers and spare parts.
(Ballast Water Convention) on the In addition to the technical challenges, INTERCARGO is of
8th September 2017, INTERCARGO the strong opinion that the regulation should respect the
highly capital-intensive nature of the industry and avoid
expressed its concerns about marginalising thousands of viable and quality bulk carriers
the practical problems faced by destroying the ‘level playing field’ that the industry works
to promote. During consultation INTERCARGO presented
by its Members, raising these this case to IMO, and whilst its position was not reflected in
concerns with the International the final legislation, the Association welcomed the entry in-
to force of the Ballast Water Convention. However, nation-
Maritime Organization (IMO) and al governments are urged not to develop more onerous lo-
at other fora. While it welcomed cal requirements for ballast water on top of the Convention.
the purpose and the focus of the INTERCARGO remains concerned about the practical prob-
lems faced by the dry bulk sector and has encouraged its
Convention, INTERCARGO believed Members to work closely with manufacturers to achieve ef-
that the regulatory bodies should fective implementation of the Convention. INTERCARGO in-
vited and finally welcomed the establishment of an associ-
consider the challenges faced by ation of their own for this purpose. INTERCARGO remains
operators of existing bulk carriers, committed to investigating the ongoing practical problems
in retrofitting existing dry bulk ships with BWM systems and
the largest segment of commercial the operation of these systems.
shipping by deadweight tonnage. As part of our efforts to fully understand the issues with the
BWM systems, INTERCARGO has carried out and/or partic-
ipated in a number of surveys of BWM systems fitted on ves-
sels. In relation to this, INTERCARGO recently participated
in a survey with MARTECMA and Intertanko, the report is
available to members at intercargo.org/2020-bwms-oper-
ational-survey-report
For more information on this topic please visit:
intercargo.org/topics/ballast
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