Singapore - 5th of April 2016,  POLY NDT PTE LTD, the member of CTI Marine Services was audited by ABS Singapore office and awarded a Certification of  Service Recognition by ABS as an external specialist  for Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM) preparation service for existing ships. It has the honour for being the 1st IHM service supplier to be approved by ABS. 

CTI (Centre Testing International Co. Ltd.) is an internationally recognized lab, inspection and Certification of Compliance company. It is a publicly listed company employing over 5,000 people worldwide. CTI Marine Services, a business arm of CTI  is a true marine occupational safety and environmental specialist with the marine division being managed from UK and operated worldwide. CTI marine history can go back 40 years to 1975 when its Singapore office (POLY NDT) first started up.  (more details referred to www.cti-ship.com)

Hazardous materials management is one of the essential requirements of both the 2009 Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (The Ship Recycling Convention) and the 2013 European Union Ship Recycling Regulation. All ships, new and existing, are to be “prepped” for recycling by mapping the presence of hazardous materials on-board with an IHM document. Hazardous materials on board are to be monitored throughout the life of the ship until just prior to departing for the recycling facilities and the IHM document is to be updated and maintained by the crew throughout this lifecycle.  While the IHM document can be compiled more conveniently at the building stage based on manufacturer’s documentation, the process is more complex for existing ships and IMO Guidelines recommend the assistance of specialists, known in the industry as HazMat experts, particularly in respects such as sampling and testing as a means to verify the presence or absence of hazardous materials.

In gaining ABS approval, Mr John Ren, Director of CTI Marine Services, remarked: “We are delighted to obtain ABS approval, particularly when we are the first by ABS. We look forward to working with ABS and shipowners to put approved IHM documents on board ships in timely manners.”

In awarding the approval, Mr David Gan, ABS Country Manager of Singapore remarked: “We are glad that we now have an approved specialist whom we could work with to meet shipowners’ request. ABS recently revised its Green Passport Notation to IHM Notation; the latter will align with recently revised IMO IHM guidelines. We also took this opportunity to recognize experts for the development of IHM for existing ships.”

While the ratification of the IMO Ship Recycling Convention is not imminent, The EU Ship Recycling Regulation has set the time frame, between 31 December 2014 to 31 December 2020, for both EU flag and non-EU flag ships calling at an EU port or anchorage to comply with the hazardous materials management requirement.  Shipowners, who have ships trading to EU ports, should be aware of this timeline and, if they have not done so yet, should engage HazMat experts to assist in the process of putting approved IHM documents on board their ships.

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