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Journal of Marine Engineering and Technology Volume 11 No 1 January 2012
Preview of global ballast water treatment markets
problems associated with non-indigenous species for over
25 years and has made numerous presentations world-wide on
this subject. He has conducted several ballast water treatment
trials, both dockside and shipboard. Dr Wright is a Fellow of
the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology and
co-Chair of the IMarEST Ballast Water Experts Group.
INTRODUCTION
A
fter more than a decade of technical analysis
and political debate, the IMO 2004 International
Convention for the Control and Management of
Ships Ballast Water and Sediments is close to
ratification. The convention is scheduled to take effect 12
months after ratification by 30 countries representing 35%
of the world’s commercial tonnage and, as of October 2011,
has been ratified by 30 countries representing 26.44% of
the world’s shipping tonnage. Adding to the momentum for
ratification is the recent determination by IMO that shipboard
ballast water treatment systems (BWTS) that treat ballast
water during ballasting, during de-ballasting, during transit,
or in some combination, can meet the current (D-2) discharge
standard, and are commercially available.
Because of delays in ratification by a sufficient number
of countries, IMO granted a delay of the date when the
first set of ships subject to the regulations need to comply,
ie, those ships constructed in 2009 or later with a ballast
capacity of less than 5000m
3
. According to IMO Resolution
(1005) 25, ships in this category now have until the time of
their second scheduled annual survey, but ‘no later than 31
December 2011, to comply.’ This first compliance date will
be further delayed because the Ballast Water Convention
was not ratified by the end of 2011. However, most observ-
ers expect full ratification of the convention in 2012, with
implementation twelve months later, which makes it likely
that by 2016 all ships subject to the regulations will be
required to have operational BWTS on board. Widespread
compliance, of course, will depend on the availability of an
adequate supply of BWTS and installation capacity. The
success of the IMOs ballast water resolution, therefore,
depends on the rapid development of a global BWTS market
before 2016.
With the implementation of the IMO ballast water
resolution expected to be less than two years away and its
success dependent on BWTS markets that are still in their
infancy industry leaders and governments in IMO mem-
ber nations are looking for at least preliminary answers to
questions about the potential size (and value) of the global
markets for BWTS. This paper, based on a longer report
produced by the Maritime Environmental Resource Center
(MERC) which includes an analysis of November 2009
global fleet data, aims to develop preliminary answers to
these questions, including tentative estimates of the number
of vessels that will need to install BWTS in various years
and the expected cost of purchasing and installing various
types of BWTS.
1
The first part of this paper describes the data and
analysis used to characterise BWTS markets. This research
focused initially on the costs and logistics of installing
BWTS on representative ships in eight ship type/size
categories that make up most of the global merchant fleet
which will be affected by IMO ballast water regulations.
In order to gauge the size and characteristics of the over-
all BWTS market, an examination was made of Lloyd’s
Fairplay
global shipping fleet data to determine the size,
type, flag, and age of the vessels in the global fleet that are
likely to install BWTS to meet IMO ballast water discharge
standards. With full compliance, it was estimated that more
than 68 000 vessels in the global merchant fleet will install
on-board BWTS before 2020. Depending on a number of
factors that are still uncertain, this estimate of the relevant
global fleet may overstate or understate the size of the glo-
bal BWTS market.
For purposes of analysis, for example, it was assumed
that all vessels will comply regardless of their age, even
though it is likely that some older vessels will either be
retired or rerouted so that they are not subject to BW regu-
lations. This would result in lower demand for BWTS than
what would be expected based on the size of the relevant
fleet. On the other hand, to be in compliance many larger
ships in the relevant global fleet will most certainly require
multiple ballast water treatment units, which would tend to
make the market for BWTS larger than what is reflected
by our estimate of the number of ships complying. Also,
while we did include more than 7000 fishing vessels under
1000dwt in our analysis of the global fleet, we assumed that
ships in this category are likely to comply through the use
of less expensive products that are still to be determined
and approved, and did not consider them in our analysis of
BWTS markets.
The second part of the paper presents a preliminary
analysis of BWTS costs that is based on data gathered from
manufacturers and vendors of BWTS about equipment costs
and from other industry experts who are familiar with the
most likely cost of installing such systems on various types of
ships. BWTS vendors are anticipating a large global market
for their products and have developed a range of technologies
that could serve different parts of it. As of October 2011, 11
BWTS had received final approval by the IMO certifying
levels of efficacy at removing or killing organisms that will
meet IMO ballast water discharge standards. In a June 2010
Background and Issue Paper published by the US Coast
Guard and USEPA, existing data and information from the
2010 Lloyd’s Register Review were used to project that, by
2012, 22 BWTS will have achieved final approval from IMO,
and a similar number will have received type approval from
a classification society.
2
Technology vendors whose systems had been approved
or were close to approval by IMO were contacted in May
2009 to obtain information about the cost of purchas-
ing, installing and operating various BWTS, and to help
understand what types and sizes of ships and on which
shipping routes they are most likely to be used. Detailed,
but preliminary, cost estimates are presented in a 2009
Marine Environmental Resource Center (MERC) system-
cost report. Based on cost information in that report and on
an analysis of the size and characteristics of the relevant glo-
bal fleet, a second MERC report was prepared in 2010 that
concluded that the value of the global market for purchasing
and installing BWTS between 2011 and 2016 will be in the
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