According to the ICS, the issues that governments needed to address include the lack of robustness of the current IMO type-approval process for the expensive new treatment equipment, the criteria to be used for sampling ballast water during Port State Control (PSC) inspections, and the need for ‘grandfathering’ of type-approved equipment already, or about to be, fitted.
In conjunction with a coalition of other industry associations, ICS made a detailed submission to the MEPC explaining the industry’s concerns and a gave a proposed way forward.
This took the form of an MEPC Resolution, which would serve as a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ by IMO member states that necessary actions will be taken with respect to the Convention’s implementation, as soon as it enters into force. For example, shipowners who have installed new equipment, in good faith and who operate and maintain it correctly, will not be unfairly penalised.
On the basis of recent contact with governments, ICS believed that there is now greater understanding of the industry’s concern that new equipment, which had been type-approved in accordance with agreed IMO standards, might subsequently be deemed to be non-complaint. There was growing recognition that it was unreasonable to expect shipowners to invest millions of dollars per ship without any certainty that the equipment would not have to be completely replaced.
ICS said that it was pleased that the Canadian Government - which had previously been sceptical about the industry’s concerns - now appeared to have acknowledged that there was a serious problem.
Sadly, however, the solution that Canada had proposed to IMO, as an attempt at a compromise, did nothing to address the industry’s fundamental concerns and could make implementation even more complicated by introducing a new concept of ‘minor exceedance’ of the Convention’s discharge standards. Simply to define and agree such a standard could take several years of discussion at IMO, the ICS warned.
The group believed that outstanding problems must be addressed in advance of the Convention receiving the necessary number of ratifications by governments to enter into force. The industry wished to ensure that the Convention would be fit for purpose and that shipowners could prepare for immediate implementation of a new regime that was fair while delivering necessary environmental protection, the ICS said.
At the heart of the problem was that the global shipping industry, comprising about 70,000 ships, was expected to have to invest around $100 bill in new ballast water treatment systems once the Convention entered into force, probably during 2016.
In addition to the ballast water convention, from 13th to 17th October MEPC 67 will debate a review of environmental provisions in the draft Polar Code and associated draft MARPOL amendments to make the Code mandatory; consideration of proposed amendments to MARPOL; consideration of the 2014 greenhouse gas study update and further work on the implementation of energy-efficiency regulations.