Cargo Business Newswire

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Shipping operators face $100 bil in ballast water retrofit costs

The International Maritime Organization is expected to ratify a binding ruling at its convention this year that would end up requiring shipping line operators to retrofit 60,000 vessels with technologies to battle diseases and invasive species in ballast water at a total reported cost of $100 billion.

The ballast water treatment upgrade regulation comes at a time when shipping lines, especially container carriers, are facing financial challenges amid a freight rate slump.

“It’s right that we shouldn’t move dangerous species around the world,” said Jan Fritz Hansen, executive vice president of the Copenhagen-based Danish Shipowners’ Association. “But the limits being set look very costly and will require substantial investment at a time when international shipping and trade is in the red,” he told Bloomberg News.

Denmark’s Maersk, the leading container-shipping group in the world, reportedly estimates its ballast water treatment retrofit costs to be approximately $500 million.

Ballast water was blamed for a cholera outbreak that killed 10,000 people in the 1990s.

For the full Bloomberg report: www.bloomberg.com