Norway has arrested a ship which had to be
rescued as it fled to a notorious South Asian recycling yard following a tip
off that it had been sold illegally.
The Norwegian environmental authorities have
arrested a ship following a tip off that it had been sold illegally and was
destined for breaking in a dirty and dangerous South Asian recycling facility.
NGO Shipbreaking Platform and its member
organisation Bellona explained that the vessel, is not allowed to leave Norway
unless it is to sail to a ship recycling destination in line with international
and European hazardous waste laws. According to the Norwegian Environment
Agency, it is the first arrest of a vessel in Norway for the illegal export of
hazardous waste..
The Platform explained that it had been
informed already during the summer of 2015 that the ship was sold for scrap.
Having been laid up for many years on the
Norwegian west coast the Platform said that it immediately contacted the
Norwegian owners, Eide Group, to make them aware of the laws governing
end-of-life ships and that exporting the vessel to a South Asian beaching yard
would be in breach of the European Waste Shipment Regulation and the UN Basel
Convention. Eide Group was said to have denied then that the vessel would be
scrapped.
According to Shipbreaking Platform on 22
February 2017 the vessel attempted to leave Norway under a new name, flag and
registered owner.
Now called TIDE CARRIER, the ship was said to
have swapped its flag to that of Comoros and was registered under an anonymous
St. Kitts and Nevis based post-box company, Julia Shipping. The organisation
said that these are all solid indications that a cash buyer, a scrap dealer
specialised in the trading of end-of-life ships to the South Asian beaching
yards, was involved.
Drama on the High Seas
The TIDE CARRIER however ran into
difficulties as the engine stopped working outside the Norwegian coast of
Jaeren. The coastguards were forced to trigger a salvage operation, complicated
by way of the weather conditions, to avoid the risk of oil spill and grounding
close to one of the most renowned beaches in Norway.
The rescue operation included the emergency
evacuation of five crew members – one of which suffered from a broken shoulder
– and the deployment of two tugboats to bring the ship to safety.
Norwegian authorities have since then been
trying to trace the owner and insurer of the vessel, given that someone should
be held accountable for the costs of the rescue operation incurred by the
Norwegian state.
While the authorities investigated the
ownership and condition of the vessel, it remained docked in Gismarvik, Norway.
“We immediately informed Norwegian
authorities that the ship was most likely sold for scrapping in South Asia and
also that there were suspicions that the ship had been used to store hazardous
sludge,” said Ingvild Jenssen, director at the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
The Platform added that on Monday 4 April the
Environment Agency and the Police found evidence that the vessel was under a
“break up voyage” insurance from Norway to Gadani, Pakistan. They were also
said to have found unidentified and excessive amounts of sludge and fuel oils.
What’s in a Name?
According to the NGO the previous week, while
the vessel was still in the dock, the TIDE CARRIER changed name to HARRIER and
changed from Comoros to another popular end-of-life flag - Palau.
Consequently, it was said to have became
clear that the repair contract from Oman which had been provided to the
Norwegian authorities as a way to escape checks for the illegal export of the
vessel was false. Revelations of the attempt of the ship’s illegal export and
subsequent breaking on the Gadani beach resulted in the arrest of the ship.
Shipbreaking Platform warned that this is not
the first time cash buyers have sought to circumvent environmental protection
laws by providing fake contracts of repair or further operational use.
Recently the Norwegian owned CITY OF TOKYO
was said to have been allowed to leave the port of Antwerp under the pretence
of repair work in Dubai – instead it sailed directly to the infamous beaching
yards in Bangladesh.
The FPSO NORTH SEA PRODUCER was also said to
have been illegally exported from the UK to Bangladesh under the pretence of
further operational use in Nigeria. Cash buyer GMS reportedly used grey- and
black listed Paris MoU flags and established anonymous post box companies in
both cases.
“The cash buyers of TIDE CARRIER will not
only have to pay back the Norwegian authorities for the rescue operation, but
will also have to answer for the fake repair documents which were used to let
it sail in the first place,” said Jenssen.
Norwegian owner Eide will have to be held
responsible for having sold to a cash buyer as this clearly indicates their
complicity in the attempt to illegally export the ship and the potentially
toxic excess sludges and fuels found on board,” she concluded.
Source: waste
management world. 06 April 2017
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