Optimarin totalworld.industry
trade has very rarely diverged in terms of trading over the oceans. Since the ancient Phoenicians and their trade empire over the Mediterranean seas, sea lanes and travel over the expansive salt water remains amongst the most valued method of delivering valuables. The valued pepper corns and silk from India relied extensively on the trade from ports near the Mediterranean Basin and without maritime influence, such commodities would become much rarer to near unattainable. In the modern world, shipping lanes is still the dominant de-facto method of trading and carriage for world trade. From the International Chamber of Shipping themselves, several facts are presented as ‘The international shipping industry is responsible for the carriage of around 90% of world trade.’ This volume of trade carried out by shipping means without the values of ships and shipping lanes ‘intercontinental trade, the bulk transport of raw
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materials, and the import/export of affordable food and manufactured goods would simply not be possible.’ With modern innovations to technologies that create better efficiencies thereby forging marked improvements in trade, ‘Seaborne trade continues to expand, bringing benefits for consumers across the world through competitive freight costs. Thanks to the growing efficiency of shipping as a mode of transport and increased economic liberalisation, the prospects for the industry's further growth continue to be strong.’ as ICS comments. Despite the innovations with aerodynamic technology, sea travel by trade would still be much more prevalent than flight as ‘There are over 50,000 merchant ships trading internationally, transporting every kind of cargo. The world fleet is registered in over 150 nations and manned by over a million seafarers of virtually every nationality ‘ Modern ships to carry the volume of cargo required use a plethora of technologies all equated to balance and displacement of
‘The international shipping industry is responsible for the carriage of around 90% of world trade.’
water. Using theories and practice of water displacement, ships have ballast tanks to withdraw or release ballast water. Readers may know the importance of ballast water but for those who do not know its significance, it is water carried to improve stability, balance and trim. In rough waters, ballast water is loaded or unloaded depending on the weather to create extra stability. This technology is useful in areas with rough waters. However, there are draw backs to this method. Environmentally, withdrawing ballast water means potentially withdrawing species from an environment and when expelling water, would expel the same species in another region of the world. These invasive species compete and may even exterminate native species in the environment which raises many concerns. A case study would be the Great Lakes in USA. Zebra Mussels native to the Caspian and Black Sea were introduced to Lake St Clair and within 10 years, spread to the neighbouring Great Lakes region which cost the US approximately $5 billion US dollars. IMO (International Maritime Organisation) has noted that ‘The spread of invasive species is now recognized as one of the greatest threats to the ecological and the economic well-being of the planet. These species are causing enormous damage to biodiversity and the valuable natural riches of the earth upon which we depend. Direct and indirect health effects are becoming increasingly serious and the damage to the environment is often irreversible.’ These concerns resulted in the IMO creating regulations and guidelines of utilising Ballast Water. In many cases this involves only selected conditions within areas could Ballast water be withdrawn. However, technological treatment of Ballast water is also a standard. As such, Optimarin has been well trusted in developing and installing water ballast treatment systems in compliance for helping the world. Few companies in the world start off with the idea of environmental protection. Optimarin is one of those few companies that did. ‘Optimarin AS was founded in 1994 in Stavanger, Norway and we were one of the first companies in the world to develop a system for environmentally friendly purification of ballast water.’ Such is their dedication to environmental total-world-industry.com | 49