- First Order to MHI Team Specializing in System Retrofitting of Vessels in Service -
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has received an order from Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) for conversion and installation work of a ballast water treatment system on NYK's Auriga Leader, a pure car/truck carrier built by MHI and already in service. The work on order, to be completed by the end of June, will be performed at MHI's Yokohama Dockyard & Machinery Works in Kanagawa Prefecture, where the Yokohama Ship Repair & Marine Engineering Department and the "Ballast Water Treatment Project Team" are located. The project team was newly established this April specifically to handle retrofitting of ballast water treatment systems on vessels in service, including comprehensive planning. The order from NYK marks the first placed to the team.
In installing a ballast water treatment system, the project team comprehensively handles all requisite tasks. These include selection of the optimal treatment system for the vessel at hand, design of modifications to the ship interior, performance of engineering work necessary for the conversion and installation, and overall project management.
The Auriga Leader was completed at MHI’s Kobe Shipyard & Machinery Works in December 2008. NYK has operated the vessel as an experimental eco-ship equipped with a solar-panel system. The 60,213 gross tonnage vessel, 199.99 meters (m) in length and 32.2m in breadth, has a capacity of 6,200 cars. NYK is currently implementing a plan to convert the ship so as to further enhance its environmental responsiveness.
The ballast water management (BWM) convention*, an international agreement which will be fully implemented in 2017, requires both new and existing ships to install a ballast water treatment system to purify ballast water prior to its discharge from the ship. Ballast water consists of seawater taken into and discharged from dedicated water tanks to provide stability and adjust the ship’s trim as desired. Although several years will pass before the convention takes effect, preparation for its implementation has become a major issue in both the shipbuilding and shipping industries owing to the large number of ships expected to be subject to its regulations.
MHI, by leveraging its abundant knowhow accumulated through construction of new vessels and vessel modifications coupled with its newly established structure to comprehensively handle installations of ballast water treatment systems, intends to promote expansion of its ship modification business aggressively while simultaneously enhancing the level of its services for previously delivered ships.
Gaining momentum from the new order from NYK, going forward MHI aims to further strengthen its robust marketing activities focused on ballast water treatment system installation as well as related conversion work for various vessels already in service, including ships built by other shipbuilders.
Note: The International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments was adopted at the assembly of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that took place in February 2004.
Source: MHI