A Belgian LNG carrier stranded in Marseille
Not far away from the Corse, on a deserted wharf, another ship is waiting for demolition. Methania was said to be already living in borrowed times in 2007, was struck by a lightning in Zeebrugge in 2008, on technical stops or in lay-up at Brest in 2013 and in 2014, and has been berthed at Marseille since mid-December 2014. Works to be carried out at Marseille repair yard were postponed. They were supposed to last for 2 months. Methania’s obsolete equipment, the availability of larger and more fuel-efficient units manned by less crews deprive her of long term or short term chartering.
Is the Corse about to migrate to Asia ?
The Corse, French flag, IMO n° 8003620, is for sale. Delivered in 1983 by Dubigeon Normandie shipyards at Prairie-au Duc (France), the ferry was operated by SNCM (Société Nationale Corse Méditerranée); she has mainly served the Nice-Corsica route in season and the Marseille-Maghreb route out of season.
In December 2014, after a period of shuttle service between Toulon and Corsica, she was decommissioned : the SNCM, partially privatized in 2006 and today going into receivership, did not plan to operate any further its services to Corsica from Toulon and Nice.
“Shipbreaking” #40
Quarterly bulletin of information and analysis on end-of-life ships
“Shipbreaking” # 39
– A 46 km long convoy left to be broken up in January /February/March 2015 (compared to 38 km in the last quarter of 2014).
– Kuito, the radioactive mammoth beached for demolition in Aliaga, Turkey, is raising concerns (p. 60). The oil industry is exposed to enhanced naturally occurring radioactivity. Crude oil has a high content of radium. Radium scales concentrate in pumps, pipes and tanks upstream of the refining process. Their concentrations may reach up to 15.000 Bq/gr. They are long-lived radioactive waste. The dismantling of a FPSO unit expose the shipbreaking yards workers to internal and external contaminations. The Turkish nuclear safety authority is on its guard.
Alarm in Cherbourg n°2
Flying the flag of Saint-Vincent-et-Grenadines, the Serval, a tugboat built in 1977, is arriving at Cherbourg. In January 2015, the most recent inspection of the Serval in the port of Gdynia in Poland revealed eleven deficiencies. This precarious state has been noted for the past eight years. In 2007, the Serval had been detained in Denmark with 23 deficiencies.
The Serval is not coming to Cherbourg to be demolished. It’s in the port in Normandy to tow an old, abandoned tuna boat that has been stuck in the wharf since the summer of 2007. It will be towing into the risks and perils of the sea. The Marginella, built in 1985, measures 55 meters in length. Its operating crew comprises 25 sailors. It belongs to the Soviet tuna fishing fleet. It is the last survivor of eleven units of tuna seiners from the Tibiya project, built between 1980 and 1986 with the exception of Tibiya, which was converted into a service boat in the Caspian Sea.
Ship-breaking # 38
Breaking at sea :
- the Forsaken ones
- the Sunken ones
- from cattle traffic to Human trafficking
- India : 200 ship scrapping workers on an asbestos-contaminated aircraft carrier
The end of :
Hassan 1 mystery : solved
Simon, from North Lincolnshire, UK, has identified the mystery-ship Hassan 1 beached for demolition in Pakistan (Cf Ship-breaking # 37, p 27): she is actually the ex-Chariot Bulker, a bulk carrier built in 1977 in Japan.
Hassan 1 is no longer a mystery. She is no stranger either. In 1999, her name was Maria K. On December 10th, 1999, she left the port of Saint-Nazaire (France) bound for England. She came back to Saint-Nazaire the day after due to bad weather conditions and was anchored there. She then dragged her anchor, was not loaded and represented a hazard and a pollution risk in case she hit the sea bottom. A pilot boat was supporting her, a harbor tug from the port of Saint-Nazaire, the Saint-Denis, was ready to take action.
Ship-breaking # 37
July / August / September 2014
A wondrous World Tour
– Pakistan pulls ahead of the pack (p 9).
– 6 genetically modified ships depart for the scrapyard (p 3).
– 8 giant Russian predators leave the fleet (p 11).
– A rotten egg for the US Navy: the dismantling of the USS Saratoga delayed by a brood of Peregrine falcons (p 7).
– Radioactive waste scrapped in the United Kingdom (p 61).
– Mexican tanker towed over 22,000 km to be broken up (p 62).