Inspectors from Saudi Aramco’s Environmental Protection Department gave guidance on how to verify that ships entering the Kingdom’s ports are discharging ballast waters, according with the D1 and D2 ballast water discharge standards. The goal of this training is to ensure ships are not delayed, thus preventing port congestion and increasing additional cost.
Although the exact class-approved ballast water testing system that the Kingdom’s port state control authority to analyse the water is known, a series of training modules used aqua-tools’ B-QUA indicative test kit.
“All ships visiting Saudi Arabia’s ports and terminals from international waters have been required to provide samples and report on ballasting operations since 16 August, so we are delighted to have been invited to the Kingdom to ensure port state control inspectors have the knowledge and understanding required to quickly analyse the ballast water. The ability to quickly sample, monitor and analyse ballast water is absolutely crucial in ensuring ships are not delayed and preventing port congestion and increasing additional cost,” said aqua-tools CEO Marc Raymond.
In these training courses, various techniques were analyzed for the monitoring of the microbiological content of water and it was explained that indicative methodology is one of the main solutions for providing reliable results.
“We are confident that the latest Adenosine Tri-phosphates (ATP) testing methodology, such as that intrinsic to our B-QUA test kit, will prove to be the optimum solution for quantifying and qualifying the efficiency of ballast water treatment systems in meeting international discharge standards,” Marc Raymond added.
According to a recent paper, A Shipboard Comparison of Analytic Methods for Ballast Water Compliance Monitoring, researchers found that while there are numerous indicative available for monitoring ballast water compliance monitoring, they differ in their sensitivity, robustness, output, costs, training requirements and processing time, aqua-tools concluded.