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Part 1: The Potentially Affected Global Fleet
To understand the potential global demand for ballast water treatment systems, we queried the
Lloyds database of global shipping, most recently on November 9, 2009, and examined data for
flag of vessel, ship size (in deadweight tonnage), ship type, and ship age.
Vessel Flag Characteristics
We reviewed the Lloyds world merchant fleet data to understand the flag characteristics of the
fleet, both by size in deadweight tonnage, and by number of ships. Deadweight tonnage is
significant for implementation of the IMO convention, which is scheduled to take effect 12
months after ratification by 30 countries representing 35% of the world’s commercial tonnage.
As of October 31, 2009, 18 countries had ratified the convention, representing 15.36% of the
world’s shipping tonnage.
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Ratification by Panama, with more than 20% of the global shipping
tonnage, would be sufficient to meet the 35% requirement, and a number of European Union
countries would be expected to follow suit.
To illustrate the status of ratification of the convention, we first sorted the data by deadweight
tonnage for the total world’s commercial fleet (not just for those types of vessels we consider to
be subject to the IMO ballast water treatment regulations). (See Table 1a for a list of the top 35
countries by deadweight tonnage.) We also sorted the data by number of merchant ships to
demonstrate the potential market for ballast water treatment technologies represented by the top
35 countries as measured by number of ships. (See Table 1b.) Note that the United States, for
instance, has a much lower number of ships in the latter table. This is largely because we have
excluded smaller fishing vessels (less than 300 gross tons) from our analysis.