Norwegian and foreign ships and mobile offshore units

Regulations on the management of hull biofouling

The proposed regulation concerns the handling of biofouling on the hull of ships and mobile offshore unitsthat are certified for international shipping and that enter Norwegian waters.

The purpose of the regulation is to prevent harmful alien species from coming to Norway via biofouling on hullsfrom international ship traffic, and to prevent the further spread of harmful alien species in Norwegian waters.Two provisions in the regulation shall apply to ships that only operate in domestic transport.
Amongst other things, the regulations require that the shipping companies have a system and a plan forhandling biofouling in place, and that there is a requirement to log a biofouling record book. In addition, thereare requirements for how the cleaning of hulls in water should take place in order to prevent the spread ofharmful alien species to the greatest extent possible. There is also an opening for the Norwegian Maritimeauthority to order the removal of biofouling in certain cases.
The regulatory proposal is based on IMO's 2023 Biofouling Guidelines for the control and management ofships' biofouling to minimize the transfer of invasive aquatic species.