BilgeRemed Case Studies

Ship board trials

After trials on stationary ship M/V Cape Wrath, studies on the effectiveness of BilgeRemed on oily bilge water in seagoing ships were carried out on M/V Swift Arrow operating out of Port Kitimat, British Columbia. 5 gallons of BilgeRemed were added on a weekly basis to the oily bilge water holding tank after collecting a sample of oily bilge water for analysis. The results show that the Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH) of the water was reduced from 19,000 ppm to 5.0 ppm in 3 weeks and the water discharged from the OWS was very clear and met the International regulations. BilgeRemed was thus found to be effective for pretreatment of oily bilge water for sailing ships and berthed ships and can help in reducing the load on the shipboard Oil Water Separators (OWS) and improving the discharge quality.

Bioremediation of oily bilge water using BilgeRemed on M/V Cape Wrath

The study was undertaken for Crowley Shipping, managers for reduced Operational ships or ROSS ships to evaluate BilgeRemed for complete reduction of oil in the oily bilge water. BilgeRemed for the project was given pro bono or free for the trial. The objective of the study was to reduce the TPH of the bilge water to zero so that the ship could release the water in open waters without violating local laws and without operating bilge pumps. The oily bilge water in these ships is collected by contracted trucks who transport the bilge water for off-site disposal and is generally a very expensive operation.  As part of an effort to explore reducing cleanup costs, a study on the effectiveness of BilgeRemed on the oily bilge water was carried out on M/V Cape Wrath for five weeks.

Every week 5 gallons of BilgeRemed was added to the oily bilge holding tank after collecting one sample of the bilge water for analysis of the water for TPH and bacterial count. The results showed that the TPH of the oily bilge water in the holding tank was reduced to 5.5 ppm at the end of the trial period though was not reduced to 0.00 ppm as one of the requirements. In general, to determine causal relationship between TPH and bacterial growth, our assertion has been that a higher TPH corresponds to a higher bacterial population that reduces as the TPH reduces over time.  In this instance,  we recorded an increase in the bacterial population when TPH is high and a significant reduction in bacterial population when the TPH was 5.5 ppm.

IMO Ballast Water Symposium

A poster presentation was made at the International Ballast Water symposium held in London, UK Paper discusses the application of bioremediation products for shipboard remediation of oily ballast water on ships and tankers and presents some case studies on bioremediation of industrial oily waste.