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Section 2: BWTS Equipment and Installation Costs
In order to assess and compare the cost of various ballast water treatment (BWT) systems, we
contacted by email and telephone the technology vendors whose systems had been approved by
IMO as of May 2009, and conducted follow-up telephone interviews and email exchanges with
industry representatives.
The following types of systems were evaluated:
Filtration and UV
Filtration and Chemical
Deoxygenation and Cavitation
Electrolysis and Electrochlorination
Filtration, Deoxygenation and Cavitation
We examined the costs associated with each of these systems installed and operated aboard ships
in the following types/size categories:
Bulker: Cape-sized Vessel
Bulker: Panamax
Container: 2500 TEU
Container: 8000 TEU
General Cargo: Breakbulk
General Cargo: Ro-Ro
Tanker: TAPS Trade
Tanker: VLCC
This list of eight ship types/sizes is not comprehensive with regard to the scope of the proposed
IMO regulations, but it provides a fair representation of the cost profiles for the BWTS we
analyzed, over a range of typical applications. We did not examine vessels that routinely treat
less than 70,000 metric tons of ballast water annually, since these vessels are likely to end up
using alternative methods to be in compliance with regulations, such as continuing to use ballast
water exchange if allowed, taking on fresh water for use as ballast, or foregoing ballasting when
in restricted or regulated waters.
Based on analysis that incorporated information from vendors and other sources, the range of
expected BWTS purchase costs across system types and categories of ship types/sizes listed
above was estimated to be $640,000 to $947,000. For all types of systems, there are some
economies of scale when purchasing, with bulk orders reducing the cost of a system by $40,000
to $104,000 per unit, depending on the system type.
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