Shipbreaking Industry - Economical & Environmental Challenges in Scrap Ship Recycling

Jun 16, 2011 -- Everything that created will be destroyed. Shipbreaking is flourished industry in Asian countries post environmental issues raised in developed countries. India (Alang), Bangladesh (Chittagong), Pakistan (Gadani), China and Turkey (Aliağa) are leading countries having shipbreaking yards where old ships are dismantled, broken and recycled. Ships are brought to shipbreaking yards mainly when the maintenance costs of the vessel start to exceed possible revenue, or when the vessel has become unattractive for the second-hand market.

So how old ships can be sold to Shipbreaking yards?

What is governance process of scrap ship for sale?

Normally ships or vessels can run up to 20-30 years of age. Later cost of maintenance mounts and that make ship owners to sell. Ship owners who have decided to end the economic life of a vessel will look for a cash buyer.

The cash buyer will either be a dedicated broker or the scrap yard operator himself. Normally, the ship will take cargo for a final voyage to the area where the scrap yard is located.

After completion of this voyage, the ship will be brought, under its own power, to the scrap yard where it will be dismantled. The cash buyer pays a price in US$ per light displacement ton (ldt), which is roughly equivalent to the steel weight of the ship.

The difficulties for sellers are to find suitable shipbreakers that can pay good price for scrap metal e.g. steel, iron of ship. The shipbrokers plays vital role in industry but sometime become very expensive to both parties. In such scenarios, shipbreaking portal like ScrapShipBreaking.com helps sellers to sell ships to right buyer.

ScrapShipBreaking.com spokesperson said “Alang in India is largest shipbreaking yards in the world however Bangladesh is all set in boom in this Industry due to very cheap labor compare to other countries. Cheap labor or less expensive technology will increase life of any shipbreaking industry. Sometime, the high prices of ships are also due to huge commission gained by brokers. In such competition, we enable ship owners to contact the buyers directly. Our aim is to set up common scrap ships information place where ships can be sold to ship recyclers at cheap price yet ship owners get good value for money of ships. “

Shipbreaking is a challenging process, due to the structural complexity of the ships and the many environmental, safety, and health issues involved. The large majority of ships for scrapping will have to come from the deep sea merchant fleet and will be mainly tankers and bulk carriers (which are the “volume” segments). That means not only economical but environmental challenges are also concerns for shipbreaking industry.

The high rising demand of steel, iron & other metals to build infrastructure worldwide with limited natural resource, shipbreaking yards / ship recycling contributes a lot of economical values, employment to thousands of workers. Probably shipbreaking can be done better way, safer way with the concerns of environmental issues.

Source: UpVert.Com. 16 June 2011

http://www.upvery.com/128125-ship-breaking-industry-economical-environmental-challenges-in-scrap-ship-recycling.html