Norway’s national economic crime unit (Okokrim) has raided the local office of Bermuda-based shipping company Teekay Offshore this week on suspicion of illegally exporting waste from the shuttle tanker Navion Britannia, the agency informed. The company denies any wrongdoing.
Analysis from classification society ABS suggests that vessels up to 15 years of age are likely to be the oldest to install a ballast water management system (BWMS); Thus, William H Burroughs, Senior Principal Engineer, ABS Advisory Services, adds that owners of ships aged 16-20 years and 21 years and above more likely to opt for scrapping.
The Norwegian Maritime Authority charged a Singapore company with NOK 7 million for violating the Pollution and Criminal Code after it attempted to sail the ship Harrier for illegal scrapping. The fine has already been paid since Wirana Shipping CPL had provided financial security for the ship as decided by the Oslo District Court when the ship was to sail from Norway in July 2018.
According to VesselsValue, in the first six months of 2019, 201 cargo vessels were sold for demolition, 75% were scrapped in Bangladesh or India, with the former having the majority share. In comparison to 2018’s first six months, scrapping decreased by 18%.
Bangladesh is the top dumping location for discarded ships globally, with the country scrapping the highest number of ships in the first half of the 2019, according to a report from the NGO Shipbreaking Platform. The report highlights that from the total 374 ships that were broken in the first half of 2019, 156 were broken in Bangladesh.
The industry and the non-profit the Sustainable Shipping Initiative announced the launch of the Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative’s (SRTI) online platform for sharing information on ship recycling. The platform comes nine months after key shipping industry actors, first announced their effort to make responsible ship recycling the norm.
Sea Shepherd announced that its flagship vessel ‘M/Y Steve Irwin’ will retire. The ship has carried out several campaigns from protecting pilot whales in the Faeroes, blue fin tuna in the Mediterranean, humpback whales off the Kimberley coast, to safeguarding marine ecosystems.
After Greenpeace allowed the Rongdhonu, formerly the Rainbow Warrior (II), to be scrapped on a beaching yard in Bangladesh, it stated that this was a mistake. This is because the scrapping operation was against the standards that the organization stands for.
According to Drewry’s latest edition of the Tanker Forecaster, recovery in the crude tanker shipping market is not expected until 2020, as weak trade growth and a bloated orderbook limit any rate recovery. But the timing of any market upturn will be heavily influenced by the level of scrapping.
European lawmakers tighten rules on ship-breaking industry
