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Preview of global ballast water treatment markets
Volume 11 No 1 January 2012 Journal of Marine Engineering and Technology
range of US$50 to $74 billion.
3
Both of these reports are
available on-line at www.maritime-enviro.org/.
Even with all the necessary caveats due to uncertainty
about implementation, enforcement, and compliance, the
number of ships in the affected global fleet represents a mas-
sive potential global market for BWTS, perhaps 10 000 units
per year (or 30 installations per day) for multiple years. This
means that if the IMO ‘D-2’ regulation timetable is to be
met, the capacity to produce and install BWTS to meet mar-
ket demand will need to grow enormously between now and
2016. Of course, once all existing ships are in compliance,
hopefully by 2017 or so, only newly-built ships will require
the installation of BWTS, so global BWTS markets will then
shrink to around 2000 ships per year (five or so installations
per day). This unusual regulation-driven pattern of a few
years of steep growth in the global BWTS market followed
by a steep market decline is likely to result in highly abnormal
pricing behavior on the part of BWTS vendors. If demand
outstrips supply during peak market years, for example,
BWTS suppliers are likely to exert their market power and
price their products high in anticipation of sharply reduced
sales once the market is supported only by newly built ships.
This would mean that our current estimates of the value of the
global BWTS, which are based on equipment and installation
costs without regard to market power and pricing strategies,
are likely to be low.
THE POTENTIALLY AFFECTED GLOBAL
FLEET
To understand the potential global demand for ballast water
treatment systems, the Lloyd’s
Fairplay
database of global
shipping, dated 9 November 2009, was examined for data on
flag of vessel, ship size (in deadweight tonnage), ship type,
and age of vessels.
Vessel flag characteristics
Lloyd’s world merchant fleet data were examined in order
to characterise the size of the global fleet by flag, size in
deadweight tonnage, and number of ships. To illustrate the
status of ratification of the convention, data were first sorted
by deadweight tonnage for the total world’s commercial
fleet, not just for those types of vessels considered to be
subject to the IMO ballast water treatment regulations. (See
Table 1a for a list of the top 35 countries by deadweight
tonnage.) Information was also gathered on the number of
merchant ships in order to demonstrate the potential market
for ballast water treatment technologies represented by the
top 35 countries as measured by number of ships (Table 1b).
Note that the United States, for instance, has a much lower
number of ships in the latter table because many smaller
US fishing vessels (less than 300gt) were excluded from
analysis.
SubType
Count
Ballast capacity
of
<
1500m
3
Ballast capacity
of 1500–5000m
3
Ballast capacity
of
>
5000m
3
Barges
574
0
0
574
Bulk Carriers
8,110
0
0
8,110
Container Ship
4,724
0
0
4,724
Crude Oil Tanker
2,160
0
0
2,160
Chemical Tanker
1,474
0
0
1,474
Chemical/Oil Products Tanker
9,323
0
0
9,323
General Cargo Ship
18,187
0
16,535
1,652
Fishing Vessels
8,001
7,970
30
1
LNGTanker
327
0
0
327
LPGTanker
1,194
540
0
654
OSVs
2,000
1,923
0
77
Passenger (Cruise) Ship
515
0
479
36
Passenger-Passenger/Cargo (Ro-Ro)
3,359
3,324
35
0
Passenger Ship
2,942
2,941
1
0
Refrigerated Cargo Ship
2,542
0
2,538
4
Ro-Ro Cargo Ship
1,873
0
1,700
173
Livestock Carrier
101
0
90
11
Vehicle Carrier
784
0
196
588
TOTAL
68,190
16,698
21,604
29,888
Table 2a: Vessel type by estimated ballast capacity
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