Ballast mayhem in Ukrainian ports: end of an era?

• Shipping

The Ukrainian government is set to abolish segregated ballast water controls, which have been the subject of widespread discussion in the shipping community and the cause of numerous challenges for shipowners.

In Ukraine, ballast waters are controlled by the state ecological inspection bodies. The ecological authorities have officially fulfilled their international obligations, but in reality, international law has been applied selectively, with contradictory local regulations providing plenty of room for abusive practices and breaches of international law.

According to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) Annex II, \'segregated ballast\' is defined as ballast water introduced into a tank that is permanently allocated to the carriage of ballast or cargo other than oil, and which is completely separated from the cargo and oil fuel system. The discharge of segregated ballast is not subject to MARPOL requirements.

In practice, the state ecological inspection officials usually require the ship master to let them take water samples from segregated ballast tanks and, if not allowed to do so, prohibit the discharge of the ballast. Where samples are taken, discharge of the ballast is delayed until the test results have been obtained, which can take several days. This issue of sampling has resulted in many disputes and led to significant financial damages for shipowners.

Problems commonly occur where water taken into ballast tanks on the open sea is not allowed to be discharged within the port. Ukrainian standards on admissible levels of suspended materials (iron and oil) in ballast water are significantly stricter than those for drinking water, which makes these limits unachievable. In reality, the concentration of suspended materials in port waters always exceeds the standard limits, especially after a storm or rain. Nevertheless, the ecological authorities strictly control the composition of ballast water at all times to ensure conformity with these standards, notwithstanding that ballast water may in fact be cleaner than the sea water in the port. In most cases, the chemical analysis of the ballast water shows an excess of admissible pollution thresholds, resulting in a prohibition on de-ballasting and substantial fines for shipowners.

Even the sampling procedure itself has raised serious doubts. Ballast tanks are not usually fitted with sampling devices; therefore, ecological inspection officials often take samples in places not intended for sampling – most notably, in ballast pumps. Contaminating substances such as sediments, steel and paint particles, mud, oil and suspended materials accumulate in the ballast pumps, thus making the test results of samples taken from them invariably worse.

Shipowners, unwilling to suffer delays, sometimes discharge the segregated ballast before the analysis has been completed or even despite the prohibition of the ecological authorities. In such cases the outcome is hardly predictable. As a worst-case scenario, penalties in the tens of thousands of dollars can be imposed on shipowners for violations of Ukrainian ecological regulations and the vessel in question can be prohibited from sailing until the relevant fines have been paid.

Segregated ballast controls were recently considered by the Baltic and International Maritime Council, which – along with some of the largest protection and indemnity clubs – issued numerous recommendations to shipowners to minimise the risk of ecological penalties.

However, it appears that the practice of controlling segregated ballast waters in Ukrainian ports will soon become a thing of the past. The relevant act of the Cabinet of Ministers to abolish these controls has not yet been promulgated, but the enforcement procedures for the new regulations will be published soon. In any case, there are no doubts that this step will finally eliminate the cause of numerous disputes and prevent breaches of law, as well as improving formalities in Ukrainian ports and rehabilitating their reputation worldwide.

Arthur Nitsevych for ILO

Arthur Nitsevych

nitsevych@interlegal.com.ua

Karyna Gorovaya

gorovaya@interlegal.com.ua