Chittagong, 11 February, 2010: The capacity of the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) will enhance significantly as the Western Marine Shipyard Limited is going to handover an Oily Waste Reception vessel to the port authority.
Western Marine chairman Mr. Saiful Islam announced this today (February 10, 2010) at a press conference at Hotel Ambrosia in the port city.
The 25 meter long vessel commissioned as ‘Bay Cleaner-2’ will be delivered from the shipyard of the Western Marine situated at the Kolagaon under Potia upazilla in Chittagong. The vessel, first of its kind in Bangladesh, is designed to receive accumulated wasted oil from ships, tankers and other vessels to prevent discharge in the sea and safeguard of marine environment as an IMO requirement under SOLAS Marpol (73/78).
Minister for Shipping Mr. Shajahan Khan is expected to be present at the progarmme as the chief guest while Mr. Nur-E-Alam Chowdhury MP, Chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on shipping ministry as the special guest.
Earlier, CPA gave a contract to the LAMOR Corporation AB of Finland, one of the manufacturers of finest spill response systems and products, to build an Oily Waste Reception Vessel for the port. The LAMOR group later teamed up with Western Marine and built the vessel at its shipyard.
Western Marine Chairman Mr. Saiful Islam said the building of the spill response system for the CPA is a testimony of Western Marine’s capability in the specialized marine vessel segment.
Managing Director of Western Marine, Mr. Sakhawat Hossain said, “Western Marine will continue its focus on building quality vessels and ensuring timely delivery to maintain highest level of customer satisfaction,”
He said the addition of this vessel would help building capacity of CPA and hoped that Western Marine will get more contracts from CPA in future to increase the efficiency of country’s premier sea port.
Currently Western Marine has the order of building 19 more vessels for its foreign buyers which are expected to be delivered by 2012. Besides, Western Marine has the order of building four more vessels for the domestic market.
The construction of Bay Cleaner-2 was started in April 2009 at Western Marine Shipyard Ltd, Chittagong with design made by Four Ship, Finland & approved by international classification society Germanischer Lloyd (GL), and Germany.
Oil spill is a worldwide concern for its serious environmental consequences. According to IMO regulations (MARPOL 73 / 78) introduced recently on prevention of conventional pollution, all the internationally certified sea ports are obliged to have waste oily water reception facility to preserve the global environment and marine life at sea. To meet IMO terms, sea-ports must have a shore based station with floating reception ship to collect oily waste from the sea and prevent dispersion of polluted water.
