Approval for minimal ballast water VLCC design

Although the IMO’s Ballast Water Management Convention has yet to enter into force, installation of ballast water treatment systems (BWTS) is already presenting owners with both financial and technical challenges. Namura’s new MIBS VLCC design addresses the challenges through the use of a revolutionary new hull form that greatly reduces the amount of ballast water necessary for safe operations, ClassNK said. The MIBS design reduces the weight of ballast water required in normal ballast conditions by some 65%, allowing the use of smaller BWTS and reducing fuel consumption.
This new MIBS design builds on a previous non-ballast water ship (NOBS) design project promoted by the Japan Ship Technology Research Association as part of a Japanese national project under the initiative of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and supported by the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency and The Nippon Foundation. It was further developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI Marine United (now Japan Marine United), the Shipbuilding Research Centre of Japan and ClassNK.
While the NOBS project succeeded in creating tanker designs able to operate without ballast water, the extremely wide hull shape limited its commercial applications, ClassNK noted. The MIBS design, however, incorporates features from the NOBS design with a flatter bottom and standard breadth hull. This, the classification society said, allows for a dramatic reduction in the amount of ballast water needed, while maintaining the dimensions of a standard VLCC (very large crude carrier).