The International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) has released a Unified Requirement (UR) relating to fire issues for ballast water management systems (BWMS) on ships, UR F45.
The UR sets out measures that should be taken to mitigate fire risks associated with each of eight different types of systems and will be implemented by IACS members to new ships and to new installations of BWTS on existing ships from 1 July 2022.
SOLAS fire space requirements impose limits on the location of the ballast water treatment room which affect system types differently, and the UR provides requirements for fire prevention, detection and extinction along with specific ventilation arrangements. These requirements are in addition to those required by SOLAS Chapter II-2.
“The UR has been developed on the assumption that only one person is present in a ballast water treatment room while the ballast water treatment system is running,” states the IACS Annual Review 2021. “It recognises that when the system is being maintained and not running there may be additional people present.”
This issue has been on the table for very long within IACS, and now finally they have all agreed to have it as a minimum requirement, says Jad Mouawad, CEO of Mouawad Consulting. “This is positive and gives unified requirements for those systems across class societies. But I don’t expect any major hurdles for most systems here, only that both engineering firms and makers must go through them and ensure that whatever affects their systems or installations is already taken care of. We have already started working with some makers to ensure compliance with those requirements.”
Continuing work on SOLAS Chapter II-2
IACS continues to work on unified interpretations of SOLAS Chapter II-2 – which contains ship construction requirements for fire protection, detection and extinction. Regulation 9 of the chapter contains the requirements for containing a fire in its place of origin, and IACS notes that there have been many interpretations made.
In 2021, IACS identified areas where a change to the regulation is needed and proposed a review to IMO. IACS has since established a project team to review the regulation and ensure that the requirements are consistent and references are correct before preparing a submission to the IMO with a new text.
