Marine Engineer, David Pugh attended the Alfa Laval PureBallast Ballast Water Treatment Engineering Partnership Program event in Stockholm this week. This reflects Houlder’s continued commitment to have a full understanding Ballast Water Treatment equipment, tools and operations.

The event was aimed at providing ballast water treatment engineering and installation contractors with training in the specifics of the Alfa Laval PureBallast system. Topics included an assessment of the general requirements for installation and integration. Alfa Laval also shared specific case studies.

David Pugh commented  “Attending Ballast Water Treatment Engineering events like these is essential for familiarisation with available equipment on a technical level. Ballast water treatment systems can be complex, and two operationally similar systems can have significant fundamental differences. Learning about them from the manufacturer can provide great advantages when performing a retrofit engineering project. Building relationships between companies will also ease the process of transferring information when retrofit opportunities kick off”

Having designed and modified numerous ships and offshore assets, Houlder can offer an independent engineering assessment of the right ballast water treatment system for a specific vessel. Factors such as vessel design, ballast pump flow rate, the availability of space and the system power supply are all factors to be considered when making a prudent choice of system.

Houlder has been engaged with Ballast Water Treatment since The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) legislation governing discharge was ratified. It has been providing wholly independent technical consultancy and design services for thirty years. It’s recent client base includes ferry operators, offshore contractors, global energy companies, Government and Navies.

This new regulation’s impact is already being felt around the marine industry. David and his colleagues will continue to work with equipment suppliers, regulators and other stakeholders to ensure Houlder’s knowledge is up to date and we can provide accurate and timely ballast water treatment engineering advice to our clients.