Some 80% of the pollution from ships is caused by operational oil discharges into the sea, made in violation of international rules; primarily to save costs or lack of facilities in ports to receive waste oils, (Ref:Oceana-2021, Dumping of Hydrocarbons From Ships ).

Fuel accounts for 60% of ship operating costs, (cruising excepted). 55,000 of the 98,000 ships registered worldwide annually consume circa 437million tonnes of bunker fuel. Impurities in bunker fuel create sludge, removed by on-board fuel purifiers and disposed of by incineration, either on-board (rarely) or onshore or, illegal dumping at sea. According to CIMAC and many others, 1.0% of fuel is lost in sludge.

The International Maritime Organisation anticipates the transition from fossil fuel will take decades; we must act now to mitigate this damaging pollution of our oceans.

This project provides an environmental and economic incentive to end illegal dumping offering a global potential to:

* Annually save circa 4.4 million tonnes of oil from incineration,
* Reduce 12.1 million tonnes of emissions each year
* An unquantifiable reduction in illegal dumping
* Reduce oil extraction from the planet, reducing environmental impact and carbon footprint

Global Remediation Technologies Limited, (GRT) a UK SME, has developed a highly innovative, disruptive, and green technology that cleans sludge and recovers entrained oil using a physical phenomenon associated with vaporisation of water. After extensive development, a pilot system was constructed in UK and in 2020, deployed to an Omani oilfield, and then further advanced under an Innovate UK SBRI Grant completed April-2021\. The pilot confirmed the technology is effective and generates no carbon emissions. Patent applied for and IP Audit completed: we have freedom to operate.

The proposed project is to develop a prototype maritime version of the technology to mitigate oceanic pollution. GRT's solution provides positive environmental, social, and economic impacts by:

* Reducing the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel by 1% per ship
* Reducing fuel costs and bunker fuel demand by 1% per ship
* Generating UK employment for 39 people and revenues of £22.2M by 2026

Value for money for taxpayer: the project delivers to UK-PLC,

* A game-changing, UK innovation with a global Total Addressable Market, of $43.2 Billion
* Corporation tax of £1.3 Million by 2026 and delivering an annual ROI on the funds requested of 1,400%,
* Significant reductions in emissions and dumping of oils at sea from shipping
* A material contribution to UK's Net Zero target, climate change and cleaning the Planet