It's not exactly oil lamps that we are talking about, but you will get the drift on hearing that Japan's government wants to ship wastewater to oil-producing countries in the Middle East in exchange for crude oil.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) has come up with the idea of transporting the water on bulk carriers to those countries and then loading crude oil for return trips.
METI is expected to begin negotiations on the matter with Qatar at the end of this month. The two sides have already taken note of ballast water, which is used to stabilize ships at sea.
Ballast water
It seems that about 10 million tons of ballast water is thrown away each day, and the idea is to replace at least some of the ballast water with wastewater to be sent to Qatar. The idea already has had a test, of sorts.
Japan exported fresh water on trial base to Qatar from last summer to the beginning of this year, with the help of Hitachi Plant Technologies Ltd., a developer of water processing plants, and the Japan External Trade Organization.
But fresh water was considered expensive at ¥90-170/cu m ($1.05-1.98/cu m). No one knows exactly how to price wastewater. But whatever it may be, the two governments will discuss the price and amount of wastewater to be handled, in the hopes of dropping the cost.
Meanwhile, the experiment seems to be moving forward after Japan's Yuyo Steamship Co. Ltd. decided to install "ClearBallast," the Hitachi ballast water purification system that uses a coagulation and magnetic separation system.
Sunny joy
The system, which was developed by Hitachi Plant Technologies Ltd., will be installed on Yuyo's LPG's 78,000 cu m LPG tanker Sunny Joy. It will be the first time for the ClearBallast system to be used on a ship in service.
ClearBallast will be installed on the Sunny Joy in November by the Innoshima Shipyard in Hiroshima prefecture.
Yuyo Steamship said it decided to use ClearBallast because it is environmentally friendly, it reduces maintenance and operation costs, it is readily adaptable to explosion-proof specifications, and the system can treat drain water from shipboard kitchens and showers.
Yuyo Steamship said it will make efforts to install ballast water treatment systems on other ships, while Hitachi Plant Technologies intends to actively expand sales of ClearBallast.
The company's target is to receive 100 orders/year as of 2012, and you can bet that Qatar will be considering its options, along with the price per unit of wastewater against that of natural gas.
It's not exactly new lamps for old, but you get the drift.
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