Hapag-Lloyd, the largest shipping company in Germany, is reliant on GEA’s chemical-free UV ballast water treatment for fitting its fleet of container carriers. Back in April, the London Express Panamax container carrier technically accepted the BallastMaster ultraV 500.
“Having a 500-cubic-meter throughput per hour, our DNV-GL-certified system is able to perform the necessary ballast water cleaning procedures via mechanically pre-filtrating and subsequently disinfecting the ballast water by applying UV-C and ultrasound techniques. The freighter, which has a length of 294 meters, can thus be employed on a global basis, in compliance with all IMO-D-2 standards and actively contribute for protecting the maritime environment,” commented Tilo Pfützke, GEA Ballast Water Project Manager.
UV ballast water treatment for upgrading container carriers
- Successful technical acceptance (shipboard acceptance approval) regarding the GEA BallastMaster system aboard the London Express Panamax vessel
- Bespoke integrating into current vessel infrastructure
- The chemical-free UV BallastMaster UltraV 500 ballast water treatment system is able to deliver 500 cubic meters of water on an hourly basis
- Easy control room connection via high-tech GEA IO control
- Integrating process into current vessel infrastructure
Due to the extremely flexible design, integrating the BallastMaster ultraV 500 was easily conducted in the London Express’ current ship infrastructure. The vessel became operational back in 1998 and has a gross tonnage of 53,523.
“A rather challenging aspect, however, was establishing a proper connection to the software system of the ship in order to make sure that an easy, efficient and reliable system operation was possible to be carried out from the control room. We managed to achieve it via the use of the intelligent IO control, provided by GEA,” comments Lars Voss, Hapag-Lloyd AG Senior Superintendent and Project Manager.
Photo: Manuel Hernández Lafuente
The strict ballast water management system’s aim is sustainable optimization of the container carrier fleet, which at the moment features a total of 190 vessels. It is currently being voluntarily introduced at Hapag-Lloyd, the fourth biggest shipping company in the world, in a close co-op effort with GEA. The objective being further simplification of the ballast water treatment system’s integration via a continuous process of further development and performance optimization.
Keeping in mind that the company has not been obliged yet in any way to upgrade its current container fleet under the stipulations of any legal requirements, the implementation of the BallastMaster has now voluntarily placed the London Express’ technical conditions for onboard ballast water treatment in accordance with the IMO convention’s requirements.
The co-op project between Hapag-Lloyd and GEA has received the support and evaluation of Hamburg’s DNV GL (Det Norske Veritas Germanischer Lloyd) classification company.