WITH hopes high that the Ballast Water Convention will finally come into force in the next year or so, getting new equipment installed on ships in time to meet regulatory guidelines will mean plenty of work for suppliers of ballast water management systems.
Therefore it is no surprise that we have been seeing an upsurge in sales roles for companies producing maritime equipment who are now getting their ducks in a row for the big push.
This is a hot topic; the International Chamber of Shipping is on record as saying that 50,000 ships (or 20 per day from last October) will need to be retrofitted with systems and that doesn’t include all the newbuildings that will need to have systems installed. Although Lloyd’s Register statistics suggest that only 17 systems are already on the market, we have a number of clients racing towards type approval. The question remains whether or not equipment suppliers will be able to meet the deadlines and even if they do whether port state dockside sampling systems and personnel will be in place…
