Wärtsilä to supply ballast water management systems for platform supply vessels

Wärtsilä has won a contract to provide its ballast water management systems (BWMS) to four platform supply vessels (PSVs) for Tidewater Marine, a US-based provider of offshore service vessels.

Under the contract, Wärtsilä will supply its 250m3/hr capacity AQUARIUSUV BWMS systems to the four PSVs, which will be assembled and shipped at its manufacturing plant in the UK.

As per the contract, the company will deliver the first system in January 2013 and will supply the remaining BWMS at a gap of two-months each.

The PSVs equipped with the BWMS are to be delivered from the COSCO (Guangdong) Shipyard in 2014.

Wärtsilä Environmental Solutions Ballast Water Management Systems director Joe Thomas said, "This contract is our first commercial order for PSVs and the selection of a Wärtsilä ballast water management system by Tidewater Marine underlines confidence in our ability to deliver in this emerging market."

The AQUARIUS UV system consists of filtration and medium pressure UV disinfection technology to provide safe, flexible, and economic process.

Ballast water treatment through the AQUARIUS UV system is attained via two stage process.

The first stage involves uptake of seawater through a back washing filter, while the second stage process involves passing the filtered seawater through a UV chamber to disinfect the water before entering the ballast tank.

The treated water when discharged from the ballast tank again passes through the UV chamber.

AQUARIUS UV system was selected over Wärtsilä’s AQUARIUS EC system due to technology preference, space, power, and cost factors.

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Image: Wärtsilä will provide its ballast water management systems (BWMS) to four platform supply vessels (PSVs) for Tidewater Marine. Photo: Agnitio Navicula.