The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has said it will not force existing ships to fit ballast water treatment systems until the first statutory dry docking survey after 2019.
Under the original version of the convention, owners of existing ships would have to fit the equipment at the first special survey after September this year.
The deal, rubber-stamped by the IMO today, in effect gives owners a two-year reprieve before they will have to comply with the convention, with some owners able to avoid fitting equipment until 2024.
Until existing ships fit the equipment they will have to conduct ballast water exchange and have a ballast water management plan.
New ships with keel laying after September this year, however, will have to be built with ballast water treatment systems.
Not everyone is happy. Christophe Tytgat, secretary-general at European shipbuilders and machinery manufacturers association CESA and Sea Europe, said: “The delay by another two years from 2022 to 2024 — in other words seven years from today — means that 20 years will pass from the adoption of the convention in 2004 to its full implementation.
"This is very hard to understand and it is not an encouraging signal for all our members who have been investing a lot of money and energy to do what they were invited to do by the decision-makers.”
