This year marks Ecochlor’s 21st year in ballast water management and the focus of the company is to continue to offer shipowners a system that keeps their vessels compliant both now and into the future.

Outside of the BWMS marketplace, Ecochlor has begun to increase its collaboration and partnerships with other innovative maritime environmental technology providers. According to Mr. Andrew Marshall, CEO of Ecochlor, the long-term goal of the company is to position the Ecochlor brand as a major “Green Marine” company in the maritime industry. The full text of the interview with Mr Andrew Marshall follows:

Recently, Ecochlor promoted Mr Panos Smyroglou to Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Is this a strategic decision to increase revenue growth while supporting customer relations?


Yes, absolutely. The Greek shipping industry is the largest nation of shipowners in the world. Consequently, it is a very important market for Ecochlor and I recognized early on that we needed to have someone in place with an extensive knowledge of the maritime industry and ballast water management, as well as a person who is widely respected by his colleagues. When I initially hired Mr. Smyroglou for Ecochlor, I knew he was the perfect candidate to head up our office in Greece.
Prior to joining Ecochlor, Mr Smyroglou was a colleague of mine for many years so I was already familiar with his background and experience. He has a strong presence in Greek shipping and has always been committed to making sure his clients receive the best support available for their company and fleet of ships. There is none better qualified than Panos Smyroglou to help bring Ecochlor to the next level!

Ecochlor recently submitted Filterless and Hybrid BWMSs for USCG Type Approval. Could you tell us what are the advantages of this application and what are your expectations for EcoOne® and EcoOne® Hybrid?


In order to answer this question, I need to start with the benefits of the traditional Ecochlor® BWMS because both the filterless and hybrid BWMS include these features. Our ClO2 technology is highly effective in varying waters anywhere in the world with no limitations when it comes to temperature, salinity or turbidity. Further- more, the system is simple to operate, extremely reliable with flow rates up to 16,200 m3/hour, the system has no TRO sensors, offers gravity ballasting, and has very low power and maintenance requirements.
You would think that would be enough, but the new EcoOne® filterless and hybrid BWMSs include all these benefits and much, much more!
Presently, there are only about five systems on the market today that do not use filters. When you delve down and think about it, not having a filter on a BWMS has tremendous advantages for vessel operators because filters have their own problems: they need to be cleaned and maintained; they can limit the flow rate; and they have a tendency to clog up, especially in ‘dirty’ water.
Our EcoOne® BWMS doesn’t have any of these problems because there is no filter. Therefore, the system requires even less power and maintenance than our traditional BWMS and it’s even easier for the crew to operate.
Last, but not least, the savings for installing an EcoOne® can be significant, since it requires 40% less piping and 30% less cabling, as well as taking less time in dry dock to install. Plus, since there are no neutralizing requirements or filter, the EcoOne® can gravity ballast both on intake and discharge which is a tremendous advantage to bulk carrier using top side tanks (TST).
With our EcoOne® Hybrid system, the vessel crew retains the ability to choose to run the BWMS with or without a filter and it operates automatically, without crew intervention based on the ballast water type. The clearest benefit of our hybrid system is for those vessels that must have freshwater operations, is the flexibility to be able
to enjoy the benefits of a filterless BWMS in marine and brackish operations and still be able to treat freshwater as required.
It is worth noting of course, that in all of the Ecochlor® BWMS series (filter, filterless or hybrid), we are comfortably below the 5 ppm dose requirements, a fraction of what some of our competitors may be operating with their electro-chlorination, hypochlorite-based systems.
Lower dosage means better protection for tank coatings. We can keep these low doses because, unlike electro-chlorination hypo- chlorite-based systems where the active substance is consumed by any organic matter (living or dead) our chlorine dioxide (ClO2) is largely only reactive with living organisms. In a hypochlorite-based system there can always be the nagging doubt that there was not enough active chemical left over to treat the living organisms if the water is particularly challenging and full of organic matter. That raises the risk of non-compliance and fines.
To date, I am delighted to say we have exceeded our expectations for the EcoOne® filterless and hybrid systems. If I were to venture a guess, I would say almost 95% of our business is from the sale of these systems and it is with some of the largest, most respected, shipowners in the world. There is no doubt in my mind that there is not only a strong desire from the shipowners for these systems but we have also filled a very large void in the industry for reliable, low-cost, filterless and hybrid BWMSs.

There is great competition for Ballast Water Systems in the market. In Ecochlor how do you respond to this competitive environment in order to maintain your market share and drive market growth?

From the very beginning, we differentiated ourselves from competitors by being the only ones on the market to offer the ClO2 treatment technology. If you think the Ecochlor® BWMS offers the best ballast water treatment in the industry, then you have to go to Ecochlor to buy it. Whereas, with UV or Electro-chlorination (EC), there are multiple companies that offer very similar products and so it rather dilutes each company’s ability to maintain a strong market share.
In the near future, I expect there will be less than a dozen BWMS manufacturers still in operation, but I can assure you Ecochlor will be among those “last ones standing”. Mainly due to our unique treatment technology, the popularity of our system amongst major shipowners and our continued focus and superior efforts on providing the best global training and service support to our clients.

What are the major problems you faced during the installation and maintenance of a Ballast Water Treatment System as a result of the Pandemic?


I would say that the disruption to global supply-chain has offered the biggest challenge to our team during the pandemic. Whilst, the virus is still a threat, with a number of regions still in lockdown, inter- ruption to our deliveries continues to be difficult, but not impossible to overcome. This is in part due to the diligence of our engineering team and their efforts over the past two years.
At the start of the pandemic, we researched and started to set up multi-source options for our major parts and delivery processes. Simultaneously, we kept in daily contact with our suppliers to make sure the immediate impact to our clients was negligeable. We installed local in-house service engineers in major maritime hubs around the world and trained new Authorized Service Partners for our more remote regions. And, last but not least, we tripled our facilities for spare parts within three major time zones.
Now, when faced with supply-chain or manufacturing disruptions, we have the ability to respond quickly and at the same time we minimized scheduling changes as well as lowered costs to our clients.

In these difficult times of the Russian - Ukraine War how do you manage to deal with supply and demand for your products?


Government sanctions have restricted most companies to some degree, but we have seen very little impact on our deliveries or in the demand for our products during this difficult time.

What are the future plans of Ecochlor in order to maintain or increase its market share in the area of BWMS?

This year marks Ecochlor’s 21st year in ballast water management and our focus is to continue to offer shipowners a system that keeps their vessels compliant both now and into the future. As I aforesaid, our filterless and hybrid BWMSs have seen unprecedented success in the BWMS market. As more and more shipowners are becoming aware of our offerings, I expect to see us continue to grow.
Outside of the BWMS marketplace, we have begun to increase our collaboration and partnerships with other innovative maritime environmental technology providers. Our long-term goal is to position the Ecochlor brand as a major “Green Marine” company in the maritime industry.
* CEO, Ecochlor