The shipping industry has supported efforts to address aquatic invasive species, but before it spends as much as $60 billion installing new ballast water treatment technology, a legal regime that offers greater clarity, predictability, and investment certainty is required, argues the World Shipping Council.
Estimates used at the IMO have projected that that there are roughly 62,000 vessels that will need to install treatment technology under the IMO Convention once it enters into force. If one assumes that the technology may cost $1 million to $2 million per ship, a capital investment of well over $60 billion will be required.
There are two principal legal regimes governing this issue. One is the IMO Ballast Water Management Convention, which will enter into force one year after ratifications by 30 or more member states that surpass 35% of the world’s merchant tonnage. Currently, the number of ratifications stands at 44 countries, representing 32.9% of the world’s tonnage. In short, it will not take much in the way of additional ratifications for the Convention to enter into force.
The second is US law, which has important similarities and important differences from the IMO Convention. The US regime has adopted the IMO Convention’s ballast water discharge treatment standard (the “D-2” standard), which confirms a uniform international regulatory objective, but insists on equipment type approval guidelines that are more rigorous that the currently inadequate IMO-type approval guidelines.
What a ship operating in international commerce needs is a uniform approach to vessel discharge requirements and to the equipment needed to meet those requirements. But, there is no globally accepted ballast water treatment technology. The IMO’s equipment type approval guidelines remain inadequate and have not been remedied, and no technology vendor has yet met, or even applied to be approved under, US equipment type approval guidelines.
Source: Drewry
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