The Norwegian Government has recently issued draft regulation on Hull Biofouling (attached as Annex B) which ships will find impossible to comply with. The ICS has drafted a Commenting paper to Norwegian Maritime Authority, the draft submission is attached at Annex A.

The draft submission highlights that the first and most appropriate option is for Norway not to proceed with unilateral draft regulation, particularly at a time when IMO has approved a new output to develop a mandatory international convention on hull biofouling. Unilateral measures risk undermining the IMO process and creating regulatory fragmentation. However, to address the scenario of Norway going ahead to develop a unilateral local regulation, the draft submission highlights that Norway’s local regulation should only remain as an interim measure until the IMO mandatory biofouling convention enters into force. Also, the Secretariat has proposed targeted amendments to make the Norwegian draft regulation practical for ships to implement, consistent with IMO standards, and effective in achieving Norway’s environmental objectives.

The draft submission emphasises that by including niche areas within the definition of “hull” in section 3 and requiring “zero macrofouling on hull” in section 4, the Norwegian draft regulation imposes an impractical zero-tolerance regime for ships. Consequently, the draft submission requests the Norwegian Maritime Authority to facilitate an additional round of consultation to refine the draft regulation in partnership with industry stakeholders and consider to:

a) Separate niche area from the definition of hull in section 3 and incorporate a rating scale to assess the extent of fouling on inspection areas in section 4.

b) Revise the impractical 24 hour cleaning requirement in section 7 to a timely hull cleaning requirement before departure.

c) Adopt performance-based cleaning criteria’s rather than ambiguous technology based requirement in section 10 that unfairly shift accountability only to the ship.

If any members have any further comments that that would help improve the ICS’s Draft Commenting Paper please send them to Manoj Subramanian, Senior Technical Advisor at – manoj.subramanian@ics-shipping.org before Tuesday, 9 September 2025, copied to: john.stawpert@ics-shipping.org

MC(25)122 -Annex A – DRAFT ICS COMMENTS ON PROPOSED NORWEGIAN LOCAL REGULATION ON HULL BIOFOULING

MC(25)122 -Annex B – DRAFT ICS COMMENTS ON PROPOSED NORWEGIAN LOCAL REGULATION ON HULL BIOFOULING