Posts Tagged "Chittagong"

The Probo Koala vessel which spread death and panic in Abidjan during the summer of 2006 has just been sold by her last owner to a demolisher in Bangladesh for $ 7.7 million. Currently off the coast of China, she should be beached in Chittagong under the name of Gulf Jash within the next few days. The Greek owner had in fact sold the Probo Koala to Gulf Navigation based in Dubai.

Built in 1989, at Korean Shipbuilding & Engineering shipyards, the Probo Koala was used by the multinational company Trafigura to produce low-grade gasoline from highly sulphurised oil off the coast of Gibraltar and Malta. The toxic residue produced by these onboard refinery operations was unloaded in August 2006 at the Abidjan port. Scattered around the Ivory Coast economic capital, the residue containing hydrogen sulphide and mercaptans caused the death of 17 people and intoxicated over one hundred thousand others, according to the official figures.

The Probo Koala vessel which spread death and panic in Abidjan during the summer of 2006 has just been sold by her last owner to a demolisher in Bangladesh for $ 7.7 million. Currently off the coast of China, she should be beached in Chittagong under the name of Gulf Jash within the next few days. The Greek owner had in fact sold the Probo Koala to Gulf Navigation based in Dubai.

Built in 1989, at Korean Shipbuilding & Engineering shipyards, the Probo Koala was used by the multinational company Trafigura to produce low-grade gasoline from highly sulphurised oil off the coast of Gibraltar and Malta. The toxic residue produced by these onboard refinery operations was unloaded in August 2006 at the Abidjan port. Scattered around the Ivory Coast economic capital, the residue containing hydrogen sulphide and mercaptans caused the death of 17 people and intoxicated over one hundred thousand others, according to the official figures.

Only in French.

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

According to informations coming from Chittagong, three container ships managed by German companies have just been put on sale on the demolition market. These three vessels are the joint property of KGAL, based in Germany, the largest European maritime leasing* company, and subsidiary of Allianz and Dresdner Bank, and of V Ships Germany, subsidiary of V Ships Monaco, the largest manager of commerce vessels in the world.

The Ankara, the Maersk Brisbane, and the Maersk Barcelona (Maersk is solely the charterer) were built in Germany in 1975-1976 and are motorized by vapor turbines whose installation requires large quantities of asbestos. These three sisterships have a lightweight of 15,000 t each.
Already, V Ships and KGAL have made it known that they will assign the container ships destined for demolition to the highest bidder, that is to say to Bangladeshi demolition shipyards, at around $700 per ton while the average price in India is around $550 per ton.
Considering social, sanitary, and disastrous environmental conditions in Bangladesh, Robin des Bois asks these European companies to either proceed with the preliminary removal of asbestos, to choose the best Asian demolition shipyards within the framework of a specific partnership, or even to demolish and recycle these vessels in Europe. A letter was sent to them in this respect.
The three container ships are frequently in European waters and one of them, the Maersk Barcelona, appeared on the Atlantic front in September 2005, near the island of Sein, off Brittany, by a record “61 km (38 miles) oil slick” that was sanctioned by an $800,000 fine. The inspectors from the vessel security center had revealed a lack of care for the oily waters treatment installation.