Safe Bulkers moves to install ballast water systems across entire fleet

Greek owner Safe Bulkers has announced a deal with compatriot company Erma First to install ballast water treatment systems (BWTS) across its fleet of bulkers.

Erma First’s BWTS was the first full flow electrolysis system worldwide to received the United States Coast Guard type approval certificate in October this year. Safe Bulkers says it has been working with Erma First for months to optimise and adapt the system to its vessels.

Loukas Barmparis, president of Safe Bulkers, commented: “We decided to install in all our vessels Erma First BWTS, which is designed and produced in Greece, starting at an early stage which provides us with certain commercial and financial advantages, including availability of equipment, minimization of down time, unrestricted worldwide trading the following years and the financial benefits of a block order.”

First installation is expected to take place during the company’s next dry-docking, which is scheduled for first quarter 2018. The entire project is expected to take around five years.