French shipping major CMA CGM has selected Wärtsilä Ballast Water Management Systems (BWMS) for its four new 3,300 TEU container vessels currently under construction.
The BWMS system chosen for these vessels is a 500m3 per hour capacity Wärtsilä Aquarius UV system. It uses a simple two-stage process involving filtration and ultra-violet (UV) irradiation.
The containerships are being built at the Cosco Zhoushan shipyard in China, and the contract with Wärtsilä was signed in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Delivery of the equipment to the yard is scheduled to begin in July of this year.
This is the third series of vessels for which the same owner has selected the Wärtsilä BWMS solution, making a total of ten ships in all.
“The Wärtsilä solution is extremely efficient and very well proven. Furthermore, we are the only company able to offer customers maintenance contract support for a BWMS installation,” Joe Thomas, Director, Ballast Water Management Systems, Wärtsilä Marine Solutions, said.
Ballast water may be taken onboard by ships for stability and can contain thousands of aquatic or marine microbes, plants and animals, which are then carried to other parts of the world.
Untreated ballast water released at the ship’s destination can potentially introduce a new invasive species with devastating consequences for the local ecosystem.
The International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments was adopted to introduce global regulations to control the transfer of potentially invasive species. It requires ballast water to be treated before being released into a new location. The BWM Convention will enter into force on September 8, 2017.