Tanker operator Stolt Tankers has selected DESMI Ocean Guard’s CompactClean ballast water management system (BWMS) for installation on the company’s existing fleet.
Under the agreement, DESMI is to equip more than 60 chemical tankers with the CompactClean BMWSs by the end of 2023.
Most of the ships will be retrofitted with two CompactClean systems, one for each ballast pump.
As explained, this has the advantage that the ships will maintain full redundancy on their ability to ballast and de-ballast, which is a priority for Stolt Tankers. The ability to ballast/de-ballast is essential to the ship’s ability to load or discharge cargo, and hence to operate.
“While strict compliance with all environmental and safety regulations is a must, we always undertake great efforts to be compliant without jeopardising the smooth and efficient daily operation of our ships. After careful consideration, we found that the CompactClean BWMS was the ideal solution for us in order to meet the IMO and US Coast Guard regulations for ballast water treatment,” Herman Heyns, Senior Project Manager at Stolt Tankers, said.
“We will be able to retrofit two systems into the pump rooms or on the deck of most of our ships. For Stolt Tankers it is essential to keep our ballast operations as simple as possible, and we do not want to complicate this more than necessary.”
“The fleet of ships owned and operated by Stolt Tankers is top of the line sophisticated chemical tankers, which imposes extra challenges on the BWMS to be retrofitted. Obviously, the BWMS must be approved for installation in hazardous areas (EX-certified), but they also need to be capable of being incorporated in a smooth and seamless manner into the existing automation on the vessel,” Rasmus Folsø, CEO of DESMI Ocean Guard A/S, explained.
Stolt Tankers, part of Stolt-Nielsen Limited, operates a fleet of 71 deep-sea parcel tankers and 84 coastal and inland tankers.