Safe Bulkers, Inc. , an international provider of marine drybulk transportation services, has agreed with Erma First, a Greece based company, to install in all Safe Bulkers’s vessels a Ballast Water Treatment System (BWTS), the company said in its press release.
The Ballast Water Management (BWM) Conve ntion was adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and entered into force on 8 September 2017. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had adopted similar regulation for ballast water treatment effective on January 1, 2016. Both organizations have provided certain extensions for BWTS installation for various reasons including type approval. Erma First BWTS became the first full flow electrolysis system worldwide, that received the United States Coast Guard (the USCG) type approval certificate in October 2017.
Safe Bulkers has cooperated with Erma First intensively the previous months to optimize and adapt the system in Safe Bulkers’s vessels. First installation of Erma First BWTS is expected to take place in Safe Bulkers next dry-docking scheduled for first quarter 2018. The installation on all Safe Bulkers vessels and related capital expenditure is expected to be expanded over a period of five years according to Safe Bulkers’s dry-docking schedule.
About Safe Bulkers, Inc.
Safe Bulkers is an international provider of marine drybulk transportation services, transporting bulk cargoes, particularly coal, grain and iron ore, along worldwide shipping routes for some of the world’s largest users of marine drybulk transportation services.