“Shipbreaking” #68, the International Shipbreaking Show

“Shipbreaking” #68
July 1st – December 31, 2022. 101 pages (19Mo)

The scrapping of merchant ships is at a standstill. A single figure summarises the depression. In the issue 65 of “Shipbreaking” dedicated to the months of October, November and December 2021, the convoy of scrapped ships was 21 km long. In this issue 68 dedicated to the last 6 months of the year 2022, the convoy of scrapped ships is 20 km long.

Tresta Star, Reunion Island, Indian Ocean (France). The END, p. 97 © Jace

The scrapping of merchant ships is at a standstill. A single figure summarises the depression. In the issue 65 of “Shipbreaking” dedicated to the months of October, November and December 2021, the convoy of scrapped ships was 21 km long. In this issue 68 dedicated to the last 6 months of the year 2022, the convoy of scrapped ships is 20 km long.

A European Union shipowner is distinguished by his negligence and financial opportunism. Operated from 2004 to 2021 by Bocimar, a subsidiary of the prestigious CMB (Compagnie Maritime Belge), the 289-metre-long bulker Star Tianjin was scrapped in Bangladesh. She was sold a few months before her arrival in Chattogram, formerly Chittagong, to a Chartworld Maritime Management based in Greece. The Bangladesh shipbreaking yard bought her at a price of 600 US$ per ton. The sale of the Star Tianjin brought Bocimar and its Greek go-between more than 14 million US$ (see the bulker chapter p. 54 to 64).

The European Union is also involved in 2 livestock carrier scandals. Read about it on p.15 “The European Union, accomplice of a slave shipowner” and p.17 “The European Union proceeds between livestock and cocaine trafficking”. Almost all the EU-approved livestock carriers approved are substandard and unusual vessels that should have been scrapped years ago, especially as they carry live “goods”.

Far from oompah bands, “Grand Pavoi” boat shows and champagne christening, the mega-cruise ships built by the Saint-Nazaire shipyards in France end up on the sly in Türkiye and India (p. 34 to 40). In the last half of 2022, the ex-Noordam was scrapped in Aliaga, the ex-Windward and Dreamward in Alang. The ex-Nieuw Amsterdam in 2018 and the ex-Star Princess in 2021 had also endured archaic destruction rites that are dangerous for the workers and the environment. Saint-Nazaire built in the glitz and opulence, Alang destroyed in misery. In 2020 the ex-Monarch of the Seas and Sovereign of the Seas were scrapped in Türkiye polluting the Aegean Sea and exposing the health and lives of workers. Since 2018, eight other merchant ships built in the Chantiers de l’Atlantique have been scrapped internationally: the LNG carriers Gastor, Mourad Didouche, Nestor, Puteri Firus, Ramdane Abane and the container ship Therese Delmas in Bangladesh, the LNG carrier Gadinia in China, and the tanker Esso Picardie in India. If we add the ex-aircraft carrier Foch to this review (p. 3), the Saint-Nazaire shipyards can be considered as major and inconsistent exporters of end-of-life ships.

Car ferries (p. 28 to 33) are no better off than cruise ships. Partitioned in asbestos to reduce the risk of fire, they have been scrapped in India, Bangladesh, Türkiye and in an informal yard in Uruguay. Phew! The Dahab has finally been scrapped. This ferry dangerously converted and jumboized into a pilgrims’ carrier to Mecca fortunately did not suffer the same fate as the Al Salam Boccaccio 98 which after her conversion from car ferry to pilgrims’ carrier caught fire and sank in the Red Sea on February 3, 2006, causing the death of at least 1000 people. Three other car ferries, scrapped in the second half of 2022, had moved for the second or third part of their never-ending career from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere or from northern Europe to the Mediterranean and for one of them a return to the North Sea to serve as an offshore accomodation vessel. Built in Spain, operated in Northern Europe and then in the Mediterranean, the Albayzin ended her career in South America. These ships, spared by fires and shipwrecks, should not make us forget that car ferries and other passenger ships carried around the world ocean have caused thousands of deaths between 2008 and 2018 according to the inventory of Robin des Bois (“Maritime and waterway passenger transport: more than 12,000 deaths“) and continue to kill.

On the good news front, the Navaleo shipbreaking yard in Brest, France, has been selected to demolish the deep-sea towing tugs Abeille Languedoc and Abeille Flandre (see the tug chapter p. 24 to 27) and the Frederikshavn shipbreaking yard in Denmark is demolishing the 250-metre-long Petrojarl Foinaven, the largest merchant ship ever demolished in the European Union (see the tanker chapter p. 65 to 82).