The bulk carrier ‘Crystal Gold’ remains unmoved from its position polluting the environment at Chittagong’s Parki Sea Beach in Bangladesh, two years after it broke loose from its moorings and ran aground in heavy weather conditions.
There were a total of 181 ships broken in the first quarter of 2019, according to figures released by NGO Shipbreaking Platform. Of these, 142 ships were sold to the beaches of South Asia. Meanwhile, between January and March, three workers lost their lives and four were severely injured in Bangladesh.
BIMCO issued a report according to which only 9 out of 26 shipyards on the EU list of approved recycling facilities are realistically open for ship recycling. From the 26 shipyards, only 3 are in the position of recycling a large ship, as a Panamax-sized vessels or even larger.
In light of Maersk announcing its entrance in the ship recycling sector in Alang, the company has faced criticism on how it handled two independent cases to ship recycling. Therefore, the company responded to the ship recycling criticism, by making its ship recycling procedures stricter.
The sale of a ship or rig to an intermediate buyer, which then sells the asset on to a shipbreaking facility, will not necessarily insulate the original owner from future liability or reputational damage. Therefore, Wikborg Rein, an international law firm, published the most common questions and their answers on ship and rig recycling.
IMO’s treaty on ship recycling has another push, as Japan is the 10th country to become a Party to the Hong Kong Convention. H.E. Mr. Koji Tsuruoka, Ambassador of Japan to the United Kingdom and Permanent Representative of Japan to IMO, met IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim at IMO Headquarters, London on March 27, to deposit the instrument of accession.
After decades of sailing the seas it comes a time when ships are recycled at the end of their life. The vessel is dismantled, and steel and other valuable materials are recycled. It is the most responsible way of disposing a vessel, since almost every part of the ship is reused, Teekay supports.
The ethics watchdog of Norway’s $1-trillion sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, will focus this year on Indian shipbreaking, which is known for unsafe working practices putting lives at risk and polluting the environment. The fund’s Council of Ethics checks that companies the fund invests in meet these ethical standards.
The Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative launched its first report in Hong Kong, revealing that there is a growing movement stepping up the pressure on shipowners to disclose their approaches to ship recycling. The outcome was reached from data collected through a disclosure questionnaire circulated among shipowners.
The Netherlands has become the eighth country to ratify the Hong Kong Convention, the treaty for safe and environmentally-sound ship recycling, IMO announced. Mr. Dick Brus, Directorate for Maritime Affairs of the Netherlands, met IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim at IMO Headquarters, in London, on 20 February, to deposit the instrument of acceptance.
