Around the Ship dismantling world in 18 pages.
While the chopping down of fishing boats is persisting in the French slipways except for a few of them, declarations of good faith from the owners and from the excavators continue. Cargo ships and other large size vessels keep on, except for a few exceptions, to flow towards Asian graveyards under the common convenience flag of Consensus-and-status-Quo Islands.
Robin des Bois is releasing their 13th information bulletin on ship demolition. Listed below are some bullet points from this bulletin which is available today on the associations’ internet site:
An Alang scheme
Within the framework of adapting the fishing fleet to the European policy, hundreds of boats will be demolished in France from now until the end of the year. Each owner receives a substantial compensation bonus from the European Union and the French State which could reach up to 600,000 €. The bonus is calculated taking into account the age of the vessel, its size, the type of fishing and the related catch quota and finally the engine’s power. The paying of this bonus is triggered by a proof of destruction or of the incapacity to navigate.
Round Robin # 1 A typical French scandal: breaking up in Bangladesh
Three French ship owners are sending to Chittagong (Bangladesh) vessels containing asbestos and other dangerous materials. The Descartes was supposedly sold by Gaz de France for operation to a Taiwanese company TMT, in fact after Marseille the Descartes stayed in a Chinese port for a couple of months before arriving in Bangladesh on July19th 2008; her only activity was to have her name changed twice. Other vessels include the Muadi a crude oil tanker which belonged to the oil company Perenco and the Serepca 1 also a crude oil tanker owned by a subsidiary of Total. The Edouard LD owned by Louis Dreyfus Armateurs and Gaz de France was sold “for operation” to Dynacom, a Greek ship owner, with the same fate of demolition in view. In spite of the huge profits (750 $ per ton for vessels at the end of their lives to 1,000 $ per ton for the vessels containing stainless steel or non ferrous metals like the Descartes sold for 14 millions dollars), the French and European ship owners are making no efforts to improve the working conditions of Bangladeshi workers.
July 22 nd, 2008
Asbestos aboard
LNG carrier Edouard LD owned by Gaz de France and Louis Dreyfus Armateurs is ill-fated to demolition. She is beyond limits. The average age of gas carriers when they are scrapped is 30. The Edouard LD is under French flag. In accordance to the French case-law, the Edouard LD has to be demolished in an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country or outside OECD under the condition she would be subjected to a preliminary extraction of asbestos and other dangerous wastes. Edouard LD lightweight is 28.000 t, with a lot of non ferrous metals. She could be sold at 850 $ per ton at least in Bangladesh. She holds between 800 and 1,000 t of asbestos and asbestos-containing materials. To dodge the French rules, the French owners are considering to sell the Edouard LD to a Greek tanker fleet owner, Dynacom, whose other activity consists in speculative trading of ships to be demolished.
