18 February 2015

GMS weekly report on China ship breaking industry for WEEK 7th 2015

With Chinese New Year holidays set to commence on February 18th next week many people have left for their hometowns early in an effort to avoid the traditional last minute rush.

Not that this will have an effect on the international ship recycling market in China with prices and sentiment there lifeless for much of the last year levels are virtually at rock bottom with offers below USD 200 per LDT forthcoming on certain units.

Chinese state owners remain busy though with Cosco having scrapped another 8 Chinese flagged units (5 containers and 3 bulkers in January alone) eligible for the government policy that sees owners receive a Huge USD 150/GRT for scrapping locally.

Source: steel guru. 17 Feb 2015

GMS weekly report on Turkey ship breaking industry for WEEK 7th 2015

After the seemingly brakeless slide from the last couple of weeks, the Turkish ship recycling sector finally clawed its slid e to a halt this week and indications for tonnage (from the very few even willing to offer) even saw some realistic and marginally improved numbers as the week ended.

Despite that there were (logically) no sales taking place into the local market, as owners are simply not ready to settle for today s reduced reality on levels emanating from Aliaga.

Meanwhile, the local sentiment has taken quite the jolt with the massive recent decline (about USD 80 per tonnes) and most locally are not anticipating a positive movement in the market anytime soon.

As such, given the prevailing situation, the immediate future is expected to be a quiet one in Turkey.

Source: steel guru. 17 Feb 2015

GMS weekly report on Pakistan ship breaking industry for WEEK 7th 2015

As if offering unworkable levels on available tonnage wasn't enough, many buyers in Pakistan (as with Bangladesh) are also struggling with their LCs and banks. It seems as though lending has become much stricter with the returns simply not adding up after the continuous market falls of the last 5 months.

Indeed, many end users are struggling badly with purchases made at the peak of the markets last year (most vessels take months to cut) with some resorting to desperate and (in some cases) questionable measures to ensure they don't lose any more money.

The cheap Chinese steel has been at the root of all the problems in Pakistan with the currency and steel prices mostly steady there. The PSBA (Pakistan Ship Breakers Association) has again chosen to limit the output of steel from yards to the rerolling mills, in an effort to stabilize and control prices.

However, what really needs to be done is for prohibitive duties / taxes to be levied on the Chinese billets and limit its supply into the country. Pakistan needs to take the lead in this due to the notoriously bureaucratic nature of the Indian government in getting any new legislation passed.

Source: steel guru. 17 Feb 2015

16 February 2015

Standstill persists in ship recycling:

Cash buyers are left with a substantial inventory of ships as ship recyclers in South Asia have refrained from committing to tonnage in the face of a relentless drop in demand for scrap steel.

The influx of cheap steel imports from China has dampened the demand for scrap steel in South Asia, a situation that has slashed demand for recycled ships even as the dry bulk freight market has plunged.

Last week, no sales of ships for recycling were reported.

Indian cash buyer Star Matrix noted that scrap prices at local shipbreaking yard has dropped from INR29,000 (USD467) per tonne in October 2014 to INR21,000 per tonne this month.

Star Matrix commented, "Only 40% of 160 shipyards are open for business. These yards are operating at 35% of their original capacity. Rolling mills/end users are operating at 25% capacity just to maintain the supply for the basic demand that arises from local infrastructure market."

Scrap import is available at the range of USD245-275 per tonne depending upon the quality and port of discharge.

Star Matrix continued, "The above local sentiments along with the influx of tonnage in the international market has created and will continue to create further drop in prices until the demand supply finds its balanced equilibrium."

Dubai-based cash buyer Global Marketing Systems said, "Many buyers are now benchmarking USD350/ldt as the new reality on bulkers with about USD20-25/ldt premium for tankers [hot works clean] and containers. There are those [cash buyers and end users alike] who are simply refusing to offer on available units until several weeks of stability has prevailed.

"Although this might be a sensible strategy, it is not an option for cash buyers who hold expensive inventories in their hands as one cheap sale can see huge amounts wiped off those vessels."

Source: his maritime 360. 16 February 2015
http://www.ihsmaritime360.com/article/16703/standstill-persists-in-ship-recycling

Ship-breaking unit faces legal fight:

A people’s action council constituted against the operations of the Steel Industries Kerala Limited’s (SILK) ship-breaking unit at Beypore has decided to fight the issue legally.

The move is in the wake of the SILK’s decision to continue the ship dismantling operations at the spot.

The new decision of the SILK to set up one more ship dismantling project at the Beypore yard, unmindful of the brewing public protest against the venture in the region, is also a reason behind the action council’s move.

Leaders of the action committee said the unit was functioning at the spot without obtaining proper clearance from the Ministry of Environment and the State Pollution Control Board. The several legal violations in the project would thus tilt the court battle in their favour, the action council leaders said.

As part of discussing the legal measures, the committee members, with support from similar movements against ship-breaking units, will convene a meeting in the district in five days.

The meeting will also discuss the possibilities of suing top government officials who allegedly gave green signal for the operations even when they lacked the mandatory clearances from other government departments.

“Citing environmental reasons, the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (PCB) had issued a stop memo to SILK nearly three months ago, but it hardly affected the functioning at the yard,” said M.K. Manoharan, one of the leaders of the action council.

Source: the hindu. 9 February 2015

Cheap scrap pushes South Asia ship recycling to near shutdown

Ship recyclers on the Indian subcontinent are becoming increasingly discouraged from buying ships as the unrelenting influx of cheap Chinese steel pushed scrap prices down again last week.

Bulkers are now priced at USD 350 to USD 370 per ldt and tankers at USD 380 to USD 400 per ldt.

Dubai based cash buyer Global Marketing Systems said that end users cannot shift inventory from their yards at present and are limiting their output to the steel mills, as the Chinese steel is being sold at such a discount locally (despite its inferior quality), that it is close to halting local ship recycling activity altogether.

The world's largest cash buyer noted that many players in the industry have started to feel 'comfortable' with the price below USD 400 per ldt on bulkers and tankers/containers, but were shocked when the prices plunged by another USD 50 per ldt within one week. However, the unrelenting drop in the Baltic Dry Index has compelled some Capesize owners to continue disposing older tonnage.

Last week, Eastern Pacific sold its 1996 built Capesize bulker Fernie for USD 6,715,500 or USD 407 per ldt for demolition in Bangladesh. Other than that, no sales were reported in India and Pakistan last week.

GMS remarked that the price drop has fallen beyond the Indian ship recycling market fundamentals and is showing no signs of slowing down.

According to GMS, some industry insiders deemed the recent fall to be 'somewhat artificial' and price drop has plummeted too fast and too sharp to be true.

End buyers have withdrawn offers on working vessels (leaving many cash buyers terribly exposed) and those vessels committed at higher prices some time ago are faced with torturous renegotiations upon arrival at the shorefront.

Source: steel guru. 11 February 2015

Japan-India in Ship-Recycling Proposal


Japanese industry and government stakeholders have expressed support in certain ship recycling yards in Alang, India.

According to gCaptain, a 14-strong Japanese delegation recently visited Alang with the intention of assessing the quality of beach recycling yards in the region and to encourage India to meet the standards of the Hong Kong Convention.

The convention ensures that ships, when being recycled after reaching the end of their operational lives, do not pose any risks to human health, safety and the environment.

Akihiro Tamura, Director of Shipbuilding Policy at the Japan External Trade Organisation, said:  “Of course we would like to support larger numbers of yards in the region, but naturally there is some constraint regarding budget and time.

“However, our ultimate wish and purpose in providing assistance to India is to encourage the Indian government to move towards accession to the Hong Kong Convention.

“We have a strategy that includes the Japanese government supporting Indian yards to upgrade and also for ClassNK to support these yards through consultancy services and ultimately certification.

Source:

USS Ranger set for scrapping, Navy says


Time is running out for a local group that hoped to bring the famed aircraft carrier USS Ranger to the city’s waterfront as a floating museum.

The 1,046-foot-long ship is scheduled to be towed from Bremerton, Wash., in early March for scrapping in Texas after the tow company finalized its plans, according to Chris Johnson of the Naval Sea Systems Command.

The 16,000-mile journey will take the Ranger, featured in the movie “Top Gun,” around Cape Horn in South America to Brownsville.

International Shipbreaking Limited has been contracted to scrap the carrier at a contract price of a penny. The company’s profit comes from the sale of the ship’s materials. Crosby Tugs LLC of Golden Meadow, La., will tow the carrier that weighed more than 81,000 tons arrayed for battle.

There were several efforts to save the Ranger since it was offered to the public for donation 10 years ago. The nonprofit USS Ranger Museum Foundation briefly considered Long Beach as a potential berthing site and sent letters to the Port of Long Beach and then-Mayor Beverly O’Neill.

Another attempt late last year by local group Top Gun Super Carrier of Long Beach came too late for the Navy, which was no longer making the aircraft carrier available for donation because no state, municipality or nonprofit organization advanced a viable plan to preserve the ship. More than 6,000 signed a change.org petition in support of the local effort to save the Ranger from the breaking yard.

Despite the finality the Navy uses when speaking about the Ranger, some members of the group aren’t giving up.

Long Beach resident Robert Harmon, a surgical technician aboard the Ranger during the Gulf War, said they will continue to fight until the end.

“It’s not over until the ship is getting cut up,” Harmon said.

Commissioned in 1957, the Forrestal-class USS Ranger earned 13 battle stars in Vietnam and operated primarily in the Pacific before it was taken out of service in 1993.

Source: press telegram. 12 February 2015

Changing Flags to Use India's Ship Graveyard:

Vessels are switching their nation of registry to avoid EU restrictions

Much of the dismantling of ships at Alang is done by hand—without safety gear.

The container ship MV Justus, built in 1995 by Polish shipyard Gdynia Stocznia, spent most of its 19 years plying the seas with a European pedigree. It was first owned by a German ship fund run by Hamburg-based asset manager König & Cie. But like a growing number of aging vessels, the MV Justus changed its nationality only months before being taken out of service. In doing so, it avoided a late 2013 measure by the European Union that banned ships registered in its 28 member nations from using dangerous tidal beaches for ship demolition work.

On July 9, 2014, the ship changed its flag to that of the tiny Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts, according to data from NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a coalition of environmental, human rights, and labor rights organizations working toward safe and clean ship recycling. Then, after starting a journey from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands on July 15 and sailing through Port Said and Dubai, data compiled by Bloomberg show, it ended up on Aug. 17 near Bhavnagar, off the coast of the Indian state of Gujarat—defying a year-old restriction from the EU. On Aug. 28, now under an owner called Malwi Ship Breaking, according to Indian government data, the MV Justus docked at Alang, the ofttimes dangerous yard where the world’s ships go to die. True to form, about a month later a worker was killed when he fell from a high ladder while breaking up the vessel. Another was severely injured.

König & Cie. spokesman Detlef Seiler said via e-mail that the ship had declared insolvency. “The sale for scrap was entirely in the hand of the [insolvency] administrator and the financing bank,” he said, and König & Cie. wasn’t involved in the ship’s flag change. Calls to a number for Malwi went unanswered.
Alang’s 11-kilometer (6.8-mile) stretch of land has become the world’s largest yard for what’s known as shipbreaking, the dirty, deadly work of tearing apart massive vessels so that their steel and scrap can be sold or junked.
Despite the EU ban, European ships keep coming to Alang. Some change their registrations, or flags, to countries without such rules just before reaching Indian waters. “There are special kinds of flags” valid for a few months that don’t require an operator to set up shop in the issuing nation, says Patrizia Heidegger, executive director of Brussels-based Shipbreaking Platform, and “they are particularly cheap for a last voyage.”
Besides St. Kitts, the flags come from such places as Comoros, Nevis, and Tuvalu, Heidegger says. Although it could be used by shipowners to sidestep current EU regulations, the process of changing registration is not illegal. Vishwapati Trivedi, India’s shipping secretary, did not respond to interview requests. Nitin Kanakiya, the secretary of India’s Ship Recycling Industries Association, says many owners register their ships in such havens as the Bahamas, Liberia, and St. Vincent for their stricter privacy laws, not in attempts to escape safety rules. Jakub Adamowicz, a spokesman for transport at the EU, didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment.


In Alang, about 1,200 kilometers from New Delhi, barefoot workers manually break up ships, exposing themselves to toxins including asbestos and lead. As workers without protective gear toiled on one hulk recently, explosive gas cylinders scavenged from other dying vessels lay about nearby. “This is not shipbreaking, this is international hazardous waste trade,” says Gopal Krishna, founder of ToxicsWatch Alliance, a nonprofit activist group. “This is transfer of toxics from developed nations to a developing nation.”

In 2014 as many as 181 European ships were beached in Alang, says Shipbreaking Platform, which compiles the data from ship buyers, other nonprofits, and maritime databases. As many as 27 of them changed flags before entering Indian waters, it says. Ships entering India included oil and chemical tankers, according to Gujarat government data obtained by Bloomberg.

Fatal accidents are common in Alang. One morning last June, five workers were breaking up a chemical tanker when a blast near the ship’s engine room killed them. Two weeks later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi halved the tax on ships imported to be broken up, potentially boosting the $2 billion industry that left at least 21 workers dead in 2014.

More than 130 shipbreakers operate at Alang, monitored by 12 safety inspectors. The EU requires that shipbreakers use gear such as cranes and provide medical care for workers. But Indian companies say their safety standards are adequate. “We have our own safety mechanism in place, which is good enough,” says Kanakiya of India’s ship recycling association. “What the EU demands is completely unnecessary, and that will involve a lot of capital spending, which can make us economically unviable.”
The Federation of Ship Recycling Associations, a group of ship recyclers from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, will meet in Singapore in March to jointly oppose the EU ban, it said in a statement.
The bottom line: European Union ships are barred from using India’s Alang beach for ship demolition, but many sidestep the restrictions.

Source: bloomberg

15 February 2015

Turkish breakers top ranks as ‘most responsible’

Sustainalytics, an independent research company working in support of responsible corporate investment strategies, has drawn up a fresh assessment of the shipbreaking industry.

Its recently released report, titled “Shipbreaking to green recycling”, ranks Indian breaking yards — which controversially look set to be excluded from an upcoming European Commission (EC) list of approved facilities — in the same environmental, social and governance (ESG) category as usually more highly regarded Turkish and Chinese yards.

The company looks at 161 different factors in its ESG ratings. Based on a 2014 fourth-quarter analysis looking at the yards’ overall ESG preparedness and best practice, Turkey ranks top, with 148 points, followed by India with 134 and China with 131.

But all three are included in category C of Sustainalytics’ ESG rating, which goes beyond environmental and safety management into other areas of governance. Bangladesh was rated in group D with just 111 points, and Pakistan in Group E with 82 points. The highest overall category is A.

Yards can score a maximum of 100 points in each of the three ESG categories.

China, the demolition country often said to have the best facilities and methods, failed on human rights rather than environmental and safety issues.

Turkey scored badly on climate-change management.

The author of the report, Jean Florent Helfre, says beaching yards in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh “rank poorly in most governance areas and in some social and environmental areas”.

The report also cites the Netherlands’ list of approved shipbreaking facilities based on the country’s interpretation of the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships. The Dutch list is made up of 13 Turkish, Dutch and Chinese yards but includes no Indian facilities.

Sustainalytics applied the same ESG assessment to some of the leading shipowners. Only AP Moller-Maersk scored above category C, achieving an A ranking with a whopping 232 points.

Orient Overseas International Lines (OOIL) was rated with a C ranking along with Kuehne & Nagel but three Asian giants, Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) were all ranked D and Japan’s K Line was given a lowly E.

Helfre says transparency is a key issue for owners.

“A growing number of companies exposed to controversial shipbreaking disclose a policy on shipbreaking. In the transportation industry, Maersk has paved the way by disclosing a detailed policy statement on the issue, followed by the CSL Group, Hoegh, Van Oord and Hapag-Lloyd,” he said.


Source: tradewindsnews.com 

Bangladesh Ship Recycling Project Begins:

File Photo: IMO

An agreement between the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh has been signed for the parties to collaboratively improve safety and environmental standards in the country’s ship-recycling industry.

A Memorandum of Understanding formalizing the cooperation between the two was signed by Nicolaos Charalambous, Director, Technical Cooperation Division, IMO and Md. Ashadul Islam, Additional Secretary, Economic Relations Division of the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Bangladesh, on April 10, 2014.

The agreement will see the IMO and Bangladesh jointly implement a project entitled “Safe and Environmentally Sound Ship Recycling in Bangladesh – Phase I”. With an annual gross tonnage capacity of more than 8.8 million, the Bangladesh ship recycling industry is second only to neighboring India in terms of volume.

The project, aimed at improving standards and sustainability within the industry, will consist of five work packages, covering studies on economic and environmental impacts and on the management of hazardous materials and wastes, recommendations on strengthening the Government’s one-stop service (in which all the various ministries with a responsibility for ship recycling – e.g. industries, environment, labor, shipping – offer a single point of contact for related matters), a review and upgrade of existing training courses and the development of a detailed project document for a possible follow-up project to implement the recommendations of phase I.

It will be executed by the Marine Environment Division of IMO, in partnership with the Ministry of Industries of Bangladesh, over the next 18 months. The Bangladeshi ministry will coordinate input from the different stakeholder ministries within the country, while IMO will also collaborate with other relevant UN agencies including the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to ensure successful delivery of the project.

The principal funding for the project will come from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), while the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (BRS) will also support the project by mobilizing some EU funding towards the work package related to the management of hazardous materials, which will partly be implemented by BRS.

IMO, the Government of Bangladesh, Norad and BRS have been working towards the establishment of this project for a number of years.

Source: marine link. 9 February 2015

Japan puts its support behind beaching yards in India

RL Kalthia Ship Breaking Pvt Ltd
RL Kalthia Ship Breaking Pvt Ltd

Ship recycling yards in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh need to be part of the global scheme of sound ship recycling and those yards in Alang which have invested in fully upgrading their facilities to meet the terms of internationally-agreed rules should be rewarded by winning more business.

This was the view expressed by Akihiro Tamura, Director of Shipbuilding Policy at the Japan External Trade Organisation (Jetro), shortly after returning from a fact finding trip to Indian recycling yards in Alang.

The four-day visit, arranged in association with cash buyer Global Marketing Systems (GMS), was attended by a 14 strong Japanese industry and government delegation, which included officials from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism; the Japanese Shipowners Association; Jetro; shipping companies K-Line and JX Ocean; ClassNK; Japanese Labour Union; Japan Marine Science; as well as GMS.

The delegation visited Alang with the intention of assessing the quality of beach recycling yards in the region.

Welcoming the comments from the visit, Nikos Mikelis, Non-executive Director of GMS, said it was up to the shipping industry and the regulators to see the improvement in conditions themselves. “We have already invited legislators from the European Commission, maritime administrations, IMO, as well as global ship owner representatives to visit the area and the invitation is still open.

Shree Ram Vessel Scrap Pvt Ltd
Shree Ram Vessel Scrap Pvt Ltd

“Separately, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) should be invited to hold a workshop/seminar in India to not only raise awareness of the improvements which have been made there but to inform and educate other yards as to what is needed to conform to the terms of the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships,” he said.

Amit Malhotra, trader and GMS representative in Japan, said the Japanese delegation was pleased with the changing attitude of the SRIA (Ship Recycling Industries Association) towards trying to understand and comply with the Hong Kong Convention. He said: “If yards in India comply with the terms of the Hong Kong Convention and the government of India ratifies it, then Japanese owners will have no concerns sending their vessels to India.”

A strong theme running through the visit of the Japanese delegation was to encourage India to meet the standards of the Hong Kong Convention – something Mr Tamura said the four top level yards in the region, Leela Ship Recycling, Priya Blue Industries, Kalthia Shipbreaking and Shree Ram Vessel Scrapping, seem to be very close to achieving already.

These yards have improved their working procedures and have upgraded their facilities to include concrete floors with drainage, bilge water pumps, protective clothing, hazardous-waste disposal facilities as well as segregated work areas among other things.

He said: “Our visit was very fruitful in being able to see the actual situation on the ground and the many improvements made in Alang. I am also impressed that they are very open to visitors and we even visited some yards without any prior notification which is important. And the workers were all wearing helmets and working clothes as well as protective shoes.”

Japan is so supportive of the Indian ship recycling sector that Japan is moving towards providing Official Development Assistance to upgrade facilities and improve operations in the region.

Nothing has been officially decided yet but the next step will be to carry out surveys of the yards to determine what support will be actually needed and to draw up an agreement between both countries, Mr Tamura stressed.

“Of course we would like to support larger numbers of yards in the region, but naturally there is some constraint regarding budget and time. However, our ultimate wish and purpose in providing assistance to India is to encourage the Indian government to move towards accession to the Hong Kong Convention.

“The Indian recycling industry plays a vital role in international ship recycling and in order to ensure a sound and safe ship recycling industry, those beaching recycling facilities in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh should be included into the global scheme of sound ship recycling. We want the Indian recycling yards and we want the Indian government to join the global recycling framework, or Hong Kong Convention.”

Mr Tamura said he hoped India would continue to be open to the outside world when it came to recycling, and he wanted to send a more positive message to the outside world to invite “a lot of people to come in and see their yards. I think this is important as is a more intense monitoring of the environment in the area which would help to give a better understanding to the outside world of what is being achieved by the yards”, he said.

He added: “We have a strategy that includes the Japanese government supporting Indian yards to upgrade and also for ClassNK to support these yards through consultancy services and ultimately certification. Japanese ship owners will be willing to send their ships to “safe and environmentally sound” ship recycling yards in India and other countries and the entry into force of the Hong Kong Convention is a very important step to realising this goal. Our ultimate purpose is to help all concerned to move towards accession to the Hong Kong Convention and all our efforts will be focused in this direction,” he said.

Source: Hellenic shipping news. 10 February 2015

End-of-life ships: 'worst global dumpers' revealed:

Asia: Out of a total of 1026 ships dismantled globally last year, 74% of the gross tonnage - or some 641 vessels - were sold to 'sub-standard facilities' in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to the NGO Shipbreaking Platform. The organisation has released a list of what it describes as the 'worst global dumpers' whose ships are dismantled directly on tidal beaches and are therefore 'polluting the Indian sub-continent'.

German ship owner Ernst Komrowski tops the list of 'dumpers' with 14 end-of-life vessels sold to the beaching yards. All of these were formerly part of the Maersk fleet and had been on a long-term charter with the Danish container ship giant which, in contrast to Komrowski, follows a strict recycling policy for its own vessels.

In second place is South Korea's largest container ship owner Hanjin Shipping with 11 ships while third is Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Company - the second-largest container ship operator in the world. 'South Asia is still the preferred dumping ground for most ship owners as environmental, safety and labour rights standards are poorly enforced there,' comments Patrizia Heidegger, executive director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.

'Ship owners sell their ships to the beaching yards for considerably greater profit than the price they could obtain by co-operating with modern ship recycling facilities.' It is 'shameful' for the shipping industry that so many owners choose to 'close their eyes' to on-the-ground realities in South Asia, argues Heidegger.

'Teekay and Hapag-Lloyd's decision last year to adopt responsible ship recycling policies shows that ship owners can make alternative choices,' she adds. 'It is time for the global leaders in shipping to commit to clean and safe ship recycling. Instead of selling to intermediaries and losing leverage on the fate of their vessel, ship owners can talk to ship recycling experts and negotiate directly with modern ship recycling facilities.'

Source: recycling international. 9 February 2015

Japanese ship recycling visit throws light on Alang upgrades:

Cash buyer Global Marketing Systems (GMS) recently took a Japanese delegation to see improved working conditions at Alang's shipbreaking yards, however, pressure group NGO Shipbreaking Platform believes there is much more work to be done.

The four-day visit to assess the quality of Alang's beaching yards was attended by 14 Japanese representatives from government and industry, including the Japanese Shipowners Association, ClassNK and the Japanese Labour Union.

Four "leading" yards in the Alang region have upgraded their facilities to include concrete floors with drainage, bilge water pumps, hazardous waste disposal facilities and protective clothing for their workers. Brussels-based NGO Shipbreaking Platform believes that the improvements leave a number of problems with the beaching method unresolved.

Speaking to Seatrade Global, Ingvild Jenssen, NGO founder & policy advisor stated, "As long as the primary cutting takes place in the intertidal zone where the ship’s hull will be cut vertically and the cut-off blocks will be dropped and dragged up to the beach, pollutants, including residue oils and toxic paint chips, will be released to the sediments and sea water and washed out by the tides. Further, no cranes can be safely operated in the intertidal zone during primary cutting, thus large steel parts will crash in an uncontrolled manner onto the beach. The gravity method is at least poor working practice, at worst deadly."

During the trip, the Hong Kong Convention (HKC) was pinned as a target standard for yards in India. Akihiro Tamura, director of shipbuilding policy at the Japan External Trade Organisation believes the top four yards - Leela Ship Recycling, Priya Blue Industries, Kalthia Shipbreaking and Shree Ram Vessel Scrapping - were close to achieving this standard.

“The Indian recycling industry plays a vital role in international ship recycling and in order to ensure a sound and safe ship recycling industry, those beaching recycling facilities in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh should be included into the global scheme of sound ship recycling," Tamura said. "We want the Indian recycling yards and we want the Indian government to join the global recycling framework, or Hong Kong Convention.”

For its part, NGO Shipbreaking Platform believes HKC compliance is not the strongest accolade for a yard. "We have criticised the HKC for rubberstamping current substandard practices and the EU has rightly set higher requirements for containment of pollutants and safe working practices that the beaching method will not be able to meet. The EU requirements further do not stop at the gate of the recycling yard as does the HKC – proper downstream waste management is required to become an EU approved ship recycling yard. As long as for example asbestos is sold on the secondhand market in India – as is current practice in Alang according to the Gujarat Maritime Board – hazardous waste from ships continues to put not only the life of workers at shipbreaking facilities in danger, but also surrounding populations."

Japan is moving towards providing Official Development Assistance to the ship recycling sector, to further improve yards and operations in the area, although that assistance is subject to further discussion in Japan.

Tamura stated: “We have a strategy that includes the Japanese government supporting Indian yards to upgrade and also for ClassNK to support these yards through consultancy services and ultimately certification. Japanese ship owners will be willing to send their ships to 'safe and environmentally sound' ship recycling yards in India and other countries and the entry into force of the Hong Kong Convention is a very important step to realising this goal. Our ultimate purpose is to help all concerned to move towards accession to the Hong Kong Convention and all our efforts will be focused in this direction."

While Jenssen welcomes the intended support, she believes that the Indian yards should be held to the same standards Japan enforces on its own shores. "Japanese public spending should not be invested in practices that put people and the environment at risk, nor should it succumb to the shipping industry’s sought for cheap waste disposal. It is fully possible to dismantle ships using slipways, piers or drydocks also in India, and Japanese investments should be looking at how to bring India up to a level which would satisfy also Japanese standards for environmental protection and occupational health and safety."

Source: seatrade-global. 10 February 2015

Ottawa eyes the shipbreaking business:

Shipbreakers in Indonesia. Dockyards and shorelines across Canada are increasingly littered with abandoned, discarded ships, Transport Canada suggests.
Shipbreakers in Indonesia. Dockyards and shorelines across Canada are increasingly littered with abandoned, discarded ships, Transport Canada suggests.

The government of Canada thinks there may be an opportunity for Canadian companies to get into the business of scrapping and recycling ships that have outweighed their useful life.

Transport Canada last week put out a tender for “an assessment of the current Canadian capacity for small and large vessel recycling.”

Most ships last for a few decades, and when their useful life is over their owners typically sell them to countries that specialize in shipbreaking, such as Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan and Turkey, the document notes. When they scrap the ships, firms in these countries recover huge quantities of steel.

In Canada, some ships are not even worth towing overseas: dock yards and shore lines across the country are increasingly littered with abandoned, discarded ships, Transport Canada suggests.

“A recent Transport Canada inventory shows 22 abandoned vessels that are over 100 ft in length and made of steel,” says the document, Marine Vessel End-of-Life Cycle Management.

Transport Canada’s efforts to encourage a domestic ship recycling industry come as Canada has largely retreated from the business of building ships. Until recently Canada retained a 25% tariff on the import to Canada of foreign-built ships. The penalty failed to inspire orders for domestic-built ships, however, and in 2010 Canada scrapped the tariff.

In response, recently ship owners in Canada such as Algoma Central Corp., Canada Steamship Lines, Lower Lakes Towing Ltd. and Transports Degagnés Inc. have ordered among them 35 new ships worth $1-billion, to renew the fleet that hauls bulk cargo such as grain, iron ore, rock, gravel, coal and salt through the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes.

Source: financial post. 10 February 2015

08 February 2015

Port of Tacoma planning Pier 4 demolition

The Port of Tacoma commission Thursday will consider authorizing demolition of Pier 4 in a project that ultimately will equip the port to handle the new generation of monster-sized container ships.

The razing of Pier 4 on the west side of the Blair Waterway north of East 11th Street is the next step in creating a nearly-3000-foot-long pier that could berth two ultra-large containerships at once.

The port has already strengthened the adjacent Pier 3 and equipped it with wider gauge rails on which new larger container cranes can operate to load and unload the gigantic new ships.

The first group of those new super ships is now carrying cargo between Asia and Europe. In Europe, several ports spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build new terminals and piers to handle the ships.

The largest of those ships, the Maersk Triple E class of containerships, are the largest ships in the world. At more than 1,300 feet long, those ships are nearly 200 feet longer than U.S. aircraft carriers. The Triple-E ships are 194 feet wide and can transport some 18,000 20-foot-long shipping containers.

Maersk Line has contracted with a Korean shipyard for 20 of those ships and is reportedly shopping for 10 more ships that are even larger, 20,000 containers.

Ships of that size are too large to be easily handled at the port’s existing terminals farther up the Blair Waterway, thus the need to update Piers 3 and 4. The Triple E ships or their peers may not be calling soon in Puget Sound, but they will displace somewhat smaller ships from the Asia-Europe trade. Those ships could be redeployed to call at West Coast U.S. ports.

The port has already done preliminary planning and testing for the Pier 4 demolition. Environmental testing discovered elevated levels of tributyltin in the mud beneath the existing pier. Tributyltin is a chemical commonly added to ship bottom paint to discourage the growth of barnacles and plant life on the ships’ hulls.

The use of the chemical has been banned for several years, but it was used for decades in ship construction and repair. The port has extensively tested the area beneath the pier to define the areas where the chemical, called TBT for short, is concentrated. The dredge spoils from those areas will be disposed in a local landfill. The clean soil dredged in the project will be disposed of in the deep waters of Commencement Bay.

The dredging is necessary to handle the new ships, which draw 48 feet of water.

Port spokeswoman Tara Mattina said the port doesn’t know where the TBT originated, but the area was once used for ship maintainence and repair before the toxic effects of TBT were known. TBT in the bottom soils can kill marine organisms and migrate higher in the food chain.

The port will move activity now handled at Pier 4 to Pier 3 during the construction and demolition process. The demolition, whose total budget including planning and testing totals $19.3 million, is expected to be completed by this time next year.

Rebuilding the pier and equipping it for the larger ships is budgeted at $121 million. No timetable has been set for that project.

The ports of Tacoma and Seattle announced last fall they are forming an alliance to market and operate their shipping terminals jointly. Under that proposed alliance, the two ports would decide where best to build new facilities. The Port of Tacoma appears to be a step ahead of Seattle in moving to handle the ultra-large vessels with the rebuilding of piers 3 and 4.

The Port of Seattle recently mothballed one of its major terminals, Terminal 5, with the intention of rebuilding it to handle those new generation of ships. The Seattle port recently, however, signed a lease with Shell Oil Co. for temporary use of that terminal for staging for oil exploration and production activities offshore in Alaska.

Source: the news tribune. 3 February 2015