The Cyprus Department of Merchant Shipping has recently issued guidance to owners, charterers and managers of Cyprus ships regarding the entry into force of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments 2004 (BWM Convention) on 8 September 2017.

The Republic of Cyprus is yet not a State Party to the BWM Convention and the DMS is working towards ratifying it. Once the BWM Convention enters into force, all ships under the Cyprus flag to which it applies will be required to comply with the convention when they call at ports or terminals of State Parties to the convention, and will have to carry on board a “Class Statement of Compliance” issued after survey by the Recognised Organisation (RO) which issued the vessel’s class certificate.

Following Cyprus’s accession to the BWM Convention (of which the DMS will inform stakeholders at the time), the DMS will authorize ROs to perform statutory work on Cyprus flagged ships and any Statement of Compliance will be replaced directly with an “International Ballast Water Management Certificate”, without a survey and with an expiry date no later than the one on the existing Statement of Compliance.

Ships will be required to comply with the relevant standards and to carry on board a Ballast Water Record Book in accordance with regulation B-2 containing the information specified in Appendix II of the BWM Convention. Ballast water management plans should be approved by the RO concerned, in accordance with regulation B-1 of the Annex to the BWM Convention and taking account of the published guidelines. Ships using a Ballast Water Management System (BWMS) must have a “Type Approval certificate”, in compliance with the IMO 2016 Guidelines for Approval of Ballast Water Management Systems.

The DMS strongly recommends that all statutory certification is synchronised, and that if an owner wishes to bring forward the date of the International Oil Pollution Prevention renewal survey, then all other statutory renewal surveys must be completed at the same time, including any associated docking survey. It will, however, consider applications for exceptions on a case-by-case basis.