All stakeholders involved in the testing, approval, fitting and operation of ballast water management systems (BWMS) are being invited to complete online surveys, as a part of an IMO study to assess the implementation of the BWMS approval guidelines and the performance of type-approved systems.
The study aims to provide a comprehensive review of the technical standards and approval testing procedures in the Guidelines for approval of ballast water management systems (G8), initiated by IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) in October 2014. The intention is to address concerns that the testing regime for approval of BWMS needs to be sufficiently robust and consistent, so that approved systems will meet the standards set out in the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments, 2004 (BWM Convention).
The surveys can be accessed at sites.google.com/a/wmu.se/d2study/ and will remain open until 1 June 2015. The following are invited to participate:
- administrations and associated agencies;
- test facilities, organisations and independent experts;
- BWMS developers, manufacturers and vendors;
- classification societies;
- ship owners and operators;
- flag State and port State control inspectors; and
- other relevant experts, consultants or organisations.
The study is being carried out by the IMO Secretariat in partnership with the World Maritime University (WMU) and its outcome will be reported to MEPC 69 in spring 2016.
