Interview between Adonis Violaris of CSN and Amir Dolan, Area Sales Manager, West and Northern Europe – RWO

Can you provide an overview of RWO’s history and core focus within the maritime industry?

RWO was established in 1975 to provide future-proof solutions for maritime water treatment – a core focus that remains to this day.

And how has RWO adapted to the evolving needs and challenges of the maritime sector over the years? How old is the company, by the way?

The company is almost 50 years old. Today, as ever, we aim to provide solutions that address all of the industry’s water treatment requirements, which means we constantly need to adapt to evolving challenges. For example, given our specialisation in water treatment, in the past we developed a ballast water treatment solution in response to the Ballast Water Treatment Convention. Now, as part of ERMA FIRST Group, RWO is focused on bilge water and sewage treatment solutions.

What are the key products or services that RWO offers? How do they benefit the maritime industry?

To date, we have installed around 17,000 water treatment units on board vessels worldwide, which we also support in operation. Selling the first unit is easy, but our strategy is to support the customer with ongoing services throughout the unit’s service life to ensure they are satisfied and want to continue working with RWO. One of the benefits of working with RWO is that our systems exceed, and even anticipate regulatory requirements. We design with the expectation that our customers’ needs will change over time, and that our systems will need to adapt to evolving regulations.

How does RWO ensure the quality and reliability of its products and services for its maritime clients?

We have a very detailed quality management system, and whenever we receive negative feedback, we take it very seriously and try to solve it as quickly and effectively as possible while taking it into account for future developments.

Can you discuss the importance of environmental sustainability in the maritime sector and how does RWO Marine contribute to this goal?

We are an environmentally focused company, and it is part of our core commitments that RWO contributes to a cleaner and healthier planet.

Today, decarbonisation in shipping is a major topic in the industry, and while RWO specialises in water treatment rather than ship emissions we also factor in maximising energy efficiency and sustainability it into our research and development efforts.

Since our oily-water separators (OWS) consist of many components, we use, wherever possible, components that are highly energy efficient and have a low carbon footprint in terms of their manufacturing process.

Green considerations also factor into our after-sales service. Our ‘consumable kits’ contain, in one package, all the components needed to keep an OWS in good working order, minimising the carbon footprint associated with the delivery of parts and aligning exchange intervals to cut maintenance frequency and related costs.

By ensuring optimal performance of the parts, consumable kits help to reduce energy consumption, guard against pollution, and extend the lifecycle of equipment.

What role does innovation play in RWO strategy? And can you share with us any recent technological advances or new solutions your company has developed?

We are an engineering company, which continuously evaluates new ideas and assesses the potential of bringing them to the market. These ideas may be internal, come from a client or from regulations, or they may be driven by trends we identify in the market itself.

For example, amid ongoing R&D towards the realisation of unmanned ships, we have developed a solution that enables our units to be remotely controlled without a physical connection to the ship system. The solution will serve a forthcoming offshore gas platform in South Korea.

Can you describe a particularly challenging project or application that you have successfully tackled in the maritime industry? You just started talking about this offshore thing. Tell me a little bit, elaborate a little bit on that.

RWO recently worked on an offshore gas platform project which was extremely challenging from a technical and safety perspective, and in terms of the documentation required. We had to step outside our comfort zone because we normally use standardised equipment, but in this case, we developed the solution according to the customer’s needs – and the specification was around 2,000 pages long.

While it was challenging, it was also very interesting, and we are proud of what we achieved.

What are the main trends or changes that you foresee in the maritime industry? And how is RWO preparing to meet these future demands?

Decarbonisation is, of course, the major topic today. However, RWO is now a division within ERMA FIRST Group, and ERMA FIRST itself is the specialist when it comes to supporting maritime decarbonisation by facilitating regulatory compliance.

Where we can help is by carefully monitoring green developments in the shipbuilding sector to identify new water treatment requirements and develop solutions in response. This is a priority for RWO amid the industry’s ongoing green transition.

And what are the long-term goals for the company? And how do you envision the company’s role in the maritime industry evolving? You are already 50 years old. There are another 50 years, let’s say, or something like that.

Our goal is always to be the first company ship owners think of whenever they need an effective solution for water treatment on board their vessels. As a trusted and experienced manufacturer and supplier of OWS with over 17,000 installations to date, we hope that we are already well on our way to realising this aim.