Bawat and Green Swan Partners Announce Joint Venture

The spread of invasive species is now recognized by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and others as a significant threat to the ecological and the economic well-being of the planet. BTS has been formed to deploy Bawat’s unique, industry-leading ballast water treatment technology in port-side applications around the world. BTS will finance and operate these mobile systems in ports. It will offer contingency treatment services to vessels arriving at these ports and provide vessel owners that opt not to install BWMS on their vessels with a ballast treatment service.

“Under the Ballast Water Management Convention sponsored by the IMO, an international treaty was established in 2004 which requires signatory flag states to ensure that ships flagged by them comply with standards and procedures for the management and control of ships' ballast water and sediments.” said Marcus Hummer, CEO of BAWAT. “Most ships are already required to meet D1 compliance. Over the next three and half years, all ships will be required to meet the more stringent D2 standard with full compliance required in September 2024.”

“Recent studies and anecdotal information show that a significant portion of ballast water treatment systems in service on vessels are out of compliance, after commissioning”, said Anders Flensborg, Partner at GSP, “This creates a tremendous opportunity to provide a ballast water treatment-as-a-service (TaaS) on a contingency basis. This will save vessel owners time and money in avoided fines as well as protect fragile ocean ecosystems in destination ports. It is a win-win for industry and society.”

The BAWAT ballast water system is a unique, filter-less, single-pass system which utilizes a pasteurization process to kill biological pathogens in untreated water. It consists of pumps, heat exchangers, and piping which are extremely familiar to the maritime industry and easy to maintain and repair. The system can utilize heat of any kind, including waste heat as the heat source for the process. The system also extracts most of the heat from the treated water back into the system so that discharged water is only a couple of degrees warmer than the untreated water.

“There are several technologies in the market for treatment of ballast water,” said Chetan Chothani, Partner at GSP, “but none as simple, efficient, and environmentally-friendly as the BAWAT system”. Systems that use UV light may have transmission issues due to water turbidity. Chemical systems are effective but require water treatment with chemicals prior to discharge. Further, many of these UV or chemical systems require a double-pass through the system for full compliance which increases complexity. In such systems, there are also related to operating. Many also utilize zoo-plankton filters in port-based sea environments.