It will be determined shortly whether the long-awaited ballast water convention will be able to come into force a year from now. Several countries ratified the convention last week, and the IMO has since then been working to determine if the tonnage from these countries is sufficient to bring the convention into force - and this process is expected completed this week, an IMO spokesman tells ShippingWatch.

Last week, Indonesia, Morocco and most recently Ghana decided to ratify the convention at IMO Assembly. For the convention - adopted back in 2004 - to come into force, at least 30 IMO member states, corresponding to 35 percent of the global fleet, need to ratify the convention. And this has so far been a somewhat slow process.