Techno-economic analyzes of ballast treatment systems for aged midsize tonnage bulkcarriers

Maritime transportation is the biggest transportation mode in the world trade which owns 90 percentage in total volume. Especially during discharging operation, to keep stability and maneuverability, it is necessary for vessels to balance weight by taking up water at the discharge port and release them into the sea at the next load port. So, an average of ballast water approxiametly 3-4 billion tons per year is transported from one place to another. During discharge of ballast water at load port, it is possible for invasive aquatic species to increase and be settled in the recipient environment which can constitute negative environmental problems and negative effect on national economies. Therefore, on 2004 Ballast Water Management Convention is announced by International Maritime Organization (IMO) which aims to get under control the transfer of foreign biological species to new living environments through ships' ballast water. When it is reached to sufficient number of contracting states and world trade tonnage, the convention got into force on 08 September 2017. The vessels subject to the convention will start to use ballast water treatment systems within the timeline specified by IMO, however they will continue to perform ballast changes determined by the D-1 regulation until this date. This timetable is determined by IMO based on the dates of the renewal survey of the vessels' IOPP certificates. The IOPP renewal is removed from the harmonized survey by some flag states such as Liberia and Singapore which intitles ship owners to perform an IOPP renewal survey prior to the date. In this case, ship owners will have extra period up to 3 years to in order to comply with BWM Convention. While these flag states contribute their owners to gain extra time which is called "grace period", they caused the ballast water discharge without treatment into the environment for a while more. Although there are lots of ballast water treatment systems in market with IMO approval, 7 manufacturers with USCG approval has been analyzed in this study. Considering the dry cargo vessels with medium tonnage, it is assumed that 2 ballast pumps with 1000m3 will be used for these vessels. Market researches and cost analyzes have been done by taking into above considerations and including cost of equipment, extra equipment's to be used during the installation of this equipment, installation cost, all related shipyard costs, off hire costs deducted from charterers, annual operating costs and training costs are calculated USD $ 834146. During calculations, it is found that while the equipment cost is the highest cost with 47% percentage, shipyard and installation costs are the second with 32% percentage. Three Turkish ship owners and two Turkish shipyard companies which are completed installation of the Ballast Water Treatment equipment have verbally approved that, their total costs are parallel with the study result. In the third part of the study, market reports of the medium tonnage of bulk carrier vessels are given and 2008 global recession effect on the average life and operation expenses have been discussed. Medium ranges are accepted between 28000 dwt and 89000 dwt during the whole study. Average daily operating costs are calculated as per current market situations and calculated year by year for the vessels above 15 years old based on Moore Stephans predictions (Url-5). In addition, the rate of increase in age-related costs considered by interpolation and operating costs are found for each age vessel separately. Average daily hire cost of panamax, supramax and handymax vessels is calculated and discounted for 15 years old age vessel. Another important analysis has been carried out regarding average age of vessels and average recycling age. According to net annual operating cash flow for 25-30 age range vessels, it is clearly seen that losses are bigger than profits which supports why the average age of the world trade fleet is young (9). Although average ages of vessels are about 20 years, in our study it is calculated up to 30 years for sensitive analysis. Estimated recycling prices found 440 usd per LDT based on 10000 mt lightweight assumption. In the fourth part of the study, it is aimed to find net annual operating cash flow via the cost benefit analysis method. Through this, it is possible to better observe how the installation of ballast water treatment equipment will affect budget of the owner. When the results are examined, it is found that installation of the ballast water treatment equipment for the 15-19 years range vessels are worthwhile in the financial planning by observing the fluctuations in the cash flows depending on installation year. In addition to this, it is found that 20-24 age range has been found to be highly affected by the cost and accepted as an average age to be scrapped. Lastly, when the results of the vessels between the ages of 25 and 30 are examined, it is found that it is not possible to meet the new regulation cost in line with the market predictions expect than vessels built on 1994 since they have not any obligation to install equipment till 2024. On the other side, the current situations of Turkish ship owners are analyzed. Turkish shipowners can't re-harmonise the ship's IOPP Certificate, while many of other shipowners are looking to take advantage of the provided "grace period" to installation of BWTS. According to research, 44 dry cargo vessels with Turkish flags deprieved of the grace period which can be earned for 1.7 years extra. However, under favour of flag state, it is prevented to discharge 98293284 m3 ballast without ballast water treatment technology which makes great contribution to ecology. As a result, the techno-economic analysis of ballast water management as a new emerging IMO convention was investigated on different age groups of bulk carriers based on financial effects. Scrap age of the vessels which completed installation of the ballast water treatment exchange equipment, retroactive market reviews and ecologic affects of removal of the IOPP certificate from harmonized survey are proposed subjects for the future studies.