This year’s Port State Control Concentrated Inspection Campaign (PSC CIC) will focus on ballast water management, DNV has announced.
The CIC is set to take place from 1 September to 30 November 2025.
Every year, PSC regimes determine a specific focus area during regular inspections. For 2025, the Paris and Tokyo MoUs have agreed to run a CIC on the topic of ballast water management (BWM). It is expected that the majority of PSC MoUs will participate in this year’s CIC.
The CIC will be carried out between 1 September and 30 November and be supported by an additional questionnaire highlighting the CIC focus areas, usually published in early August. And DNV is offering a complimentary webinar on 2 September 2025. DNV will also update its FAQs on its BWM webpage to assist compliance.
DNV’s internal statistics show that the following findings were most recorded for BWM in 2024 and 2025:
Ballast water record book:
- Electronic record book used on board, but no flag approval letter is on board
- Incorrect or missing entries in the ballast water record book
- Mismatch between entries in the ballast water record book and observed ballast operations
- Mismatch between entries in the ballast water record book and the Ballast Water Management System (BWMS) log entries
- Old version of the ballast water record book is still in use
Ballast Water Management System (BWMS):
- Failure to inform PSC about BWMS malfunction
- Failure to record BWMS issues in the ballast water record book
- The BWMS, or parts of it, is out of order
- Contingency measures in the event of BWMS malfunction/failure are not followed
Ballast water management plan:
- Inconsistent, missing or outdated information about the BWM method, port of registry, designated person, etc.
Incorporating these findings into routine on-board maintenance and ongoing crew familiarization is beneficial for ensuring continued compliance. As always, the CIC is part of regular PSC inspections. Inspections will therefore not be limited to BWM; however, during the first PSC inspection in a participating MoU, the CIC topic will be addressed.
DNV has also shared some updates of its PSC Top 18 detainable deficiencies list.