Ship breaking surge will be short lived: Bleak future for Indian ship recyclers

P. S. Nagarsheth, the outgoing President of the Iron Steel Scrap & Shipbreakers’ Association, said that the ship breaking at Alang in Western India, which is now seeing brighter days, will all come to an end in course of time.

Since its inception in 1982, Alang which is located on the western coast of Gulf of Cambay, in the western part of India has emerged as one of the choicest ship-scrapping destinations for the ship owners around the world.

According to the association, the surge that is being seen is merely a temporary phenomenon because ship breaking in Bangladesh has suffered badly. The Bangladesh High Court in March 2009 directed the government not to allow any ship breaking in Bangladesh without cleaning its in-built toxins.

Thus Indian ship breakers have achieved the ship demolition record during the boom period when the ship breaking activity in Bangladesh came to a standstill. Also the slowdown in global trade forced international fleet owners to retire ageing ships faster. 

Unfortunately Indian ship breakers are soon set to face a number of road blocks in the near future. The immediate concern is how to dispose of the hazardous material. The representative of the Gujarat Pollution Board informed last week that the landfills meant for disposing the hazardous cargo will not last out for more than a year. No additional landfills could be provided thereafter.  Another reason is that steel from scrap is not becoming a viable venture. The worst is ship breaking by the beaching method which is considered most economical and practical will soon be banned. The ship owners are hell bent on forcing the costly dry dock method on the Indian ship breakers in place of beaching method.

The contention of the Indian ship breakers has been that ship owners should clean the vessel’s tanks before delivery of the vessel to ship breakers. Also all hazardous material has to be removed and ship decontaminated before delivery. But the ship owners want to enforce this liability on the ship breaker without justification.

Mr Nagarsheth points out that once a ship is decommissioned it is no more a ship but a mere scrap of structure under tow. There is no clear demarcation when a vessel ceases to be a ship. Once a ship is delivered to the ship recycler, it should cease to be a ship as it becomes a mere ‘floating cargo’. Since the IMO’s role is restricted until the ship remains a ship hence by terming it as ‘cargo’ and no more a floating structure, the role of IMO would cease thereafter.

He alleges, “The International Maritime Organization has been bought over by the ship owners lobby and is maneuvering the world body into passing the liability on to the ship breaker. Thus the IMO is going ahead and will soon be bringing out detailed guidelines for ship owners’ benefit.”

Source: Maritime Professional; by Joseph Fonseca; Jan 31, 2011

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