Upcoming BWMS compliance due dates – some practical recommendations

DNV is forecasting a peak season for global Ballast Water Treatment System (BWTS) installations, and the industry should get prepared for a busy 2022. This statutory news contains some timely reminders to ensure compliance with the Ballast Water Management (BWM) Convention.

(Relevant for ship owners/managers, design offices, yards, suppliers and flag states.)

Below are some practical recommendations on compliance dates and other information to comply with the BWM Convention:

According to the MEPC 71 meeting in June 2017, ships constructed before 8 September 2017 must comply with the BWM D-2 standard by the first IOPP renewal after 8 September 2019.

Due to the schedule for the BWM Convention D-2 compliance dates, and for the IOPP certificate de-couplings of individual ships, DNV forecasts a peak season during 2022. This is when about 30% of the world’s vessels in international voyage are scheduled to comply with the D-2 regulation. This high share of BWMS commissioning in 2022 covers 63% of the total sum of installations for the DNV-classed fleet scheduled between 2022 and 2024. The figure below illustrates the respective share of D-2 due dates for 2022, 2023 and 2024:

Figure 1: BWMS not yet installed with D-2, due dates 2022-2024

Use the Compliance Planner for a complete overview

To support this and other regulatory regulations, DNV has launched a tool called “Compliance Planner”, available for DNV customers only under My Services on Veracity. This tool enables you to easily track the requirements and deadlines of upcoming statutory legislation for your vessels and your entire fleet. In the Compliance Planner you will also see the due dates for the BWM Convention. This is how the feature could look in your Compliance Planner: