Tag: Hong Kong Convention

EU-flagged vessels intended to be scrapped whilst under EU jurisdiction, are no longer exempted from EU waste laws.

In an exclusive interview to SAFETY4SEA, Dr Nikos Mikelis, Non-executive Director, GMS, provides updates of the regulatory scheme surrounding ship recycling and the current situation in ship recycling yards.

While the Hong Kong Convention has been a big step towards sustainable ship recycling, the EU regulation has slowed its adoption; a concern that should be dealt with the utmost urgency by all stakeholders, said ship buyer GMS.

Spain is the latest country to accede to IMO's treaty for safe and environmentally-sound ship recycling – the Hong Kong Convention.

Ships reach their ‘end-of-life’ when their second hand sale value for further trading drops below their recycling value. This can happen for many reasons, such as ship’s condition deterioration, but the ship recycling procees must take place with caution. However, this does not always happen, with such cases providing lessons learned. One such case is the Eide carrier. 

Croatia became the latest country to accede to Hong Kong Convention, the IMO's treaty for safe and environmentally-sound ship recycling. Now, the 16 contracting states to the Convention represent approximately 29.58% of the gross tonnage of the world's merchant shipping.

The COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily shuttered shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh, delaying safety reforms in one of the world's most popular ship dismantling destinations which has been scrutinized several times over its dangerous and dirty practices.

While the EU list of approved active recycling yards has increased, the rules still don’t reflect commercial realities and lags behind on capacity to scrap large commercial ships, BIMCO said. 

The absence of one international and uniformly applicable convention for ship recycling can make this a difficult field to navigate for operators, causing even reputational and financial damage.

The Asian Shipowners’ Association (ASA) held its 29th Annual General Meeting on 28th May 2020. The meeting covered a broad range of topics, such as seafarers repatriation, sustainable shipping, the Hong Kong Convention, and piracy.