The next meeting of IMO’s MEPC 76 (10-17 June 2021) will meet virtually and will consider several ballast water related issues. Below is a summary of the documents submitted to the committee
The ballast water items will be considered under item 4 of the agenda. These items have already been submitted as documents and the chairman of the MEPC has already proposed various actions. These include that the PPR Sub-Committee consider document MEPC 76/4/1 (ISO) – the consideration of a protocol for the verification of compliance monitoring devices – under any other business and advise MEPC.
MEPC 76 has also been asked to consider the document (MEPC 76/4/3) from IMO Secretariat regarding the experience building phase and liaise with the World Maritime University on gathering the data.
The committee is also to consider the form of the International Ballast Water Management Certificate as submitted by China (MEPC 75/3/5) and report at MEPC 76.
Other ballast water items on the agenda include a submission from Intertanko on entries into the ballast water record book (MEPC 76/INF.20), a report from China on assessing the viability of 10-50 µm phytoplankton in ballast water (MEPC 76/INF.46) and a study evaluating the performance of ballast water management systems installed on board ships against the D-2 standard from Australia (MEPC 76/INF.56).
The bulk of the documents provided ahead of MEPC 76 are information submissions from class societies and country administrations concerning ballast water management systems that have been type-approved in compliance with regulation D-3.1 of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments, 2004 (BWM Convention). At the last count, there were 22 submissions, listed by country that submitted the information and the company (see below).
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