A New Method for Analyzing the Costs in Terms of Quality Parameters in Maritime Field

摘要

The transport of aquatic organisms from one place to another by ship's ballast water has created substantial environmental impact on discharging areas. In order to avoid that, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) recommends treating the ballast water by different methods. The paper presents five methods of managing ballast water: exchange of ballast water, treating by filtration and irradiation with ultraviolet light, treating by de-oxygenation method, treating with biocide and treating by heating. Choosing one of them is a matter of quality of the treated ballast and total cost, including the acquisition cost, maintenance and consumption. There have been identified the most important quality parameters that should be taken into account by the ship owner in his decision for fitting the vessel with such equipment. Each treatment method was described from these quality parameters points of view. The method proposed for analyzing the cost in terms of quality consists in placing the treatment equipment in cost/quality diagrams. Depending on the unit cost, each method will be situated either in the profitableness area of the chart or in the non-profitableness area. The papers' aim is to provide the ship owners with a handy instrument which helps them to choose the most suitable ballast water treatment equipment, based not only on the cost but also on the quality parameters.