First Chinese Ballast Water System Gets IMO’s Final Approval

BalClor ballast water management system, developed by SunRui Corrosion and Fouling Control Company, has passed the official evaluation by IMO’s GESAMP evaluation team, and IMO has publicized it on its website, according to sources from Ministry of Transport.

According to statistics of Lloyd's Register Group, only 15 of the 50 developers in the world have got the final approval of IMO, and SunRui Corrosion and Fouling Control Company from Qingdao is the first Chinese developer that has got the approval.

As is known to all, ballast water is used to regulate the stability or to maintain stress loads within acceptable limits. However, there are thousands of aquatic species that may be carried in ships' ballast water, including bacteria and other microbes, micro-algae, and various life stages of aquatic plant and animal species. Species are considered alien if they are not native to a given ecosystem. They are also referred to as exotic, non-native, or non-indigenous species. Alien species are considered to be invasive when their introduction causes, or is likely to cause, harm to the environment, the economy, or human health.

As a result, IMO has passed the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediment in 2004, requiring that all the ocean-going vessels have to install ballast water management system according to the time table.

However, it is really difficult to develop ballast water management system, due to the high technical requirements of IMO, high integration and intellectualization of the system and strict approval procedure of IMO.

SunRui Corrosion and Fouling Control Company started to develop the ballast water management system since 2007. With the help of China Classification Society, SunRui has solved dozens of technical problems and managed to pass IMO’s tests.

SunRui proposed the application for final approval of BalClor ballast water management system through Ministry of Transport, and finally passed the evaluation by GESAMP.