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
Europe is exporting wastes to Bangladesh
The single hull oil tanker Muadi owned by the French society PERENCO has just been sold for demolition to Bangladesh for 695 $ per ton. Built in 1972, the Muadi (ex-Beatrix Voyager, ex-Chevron Zenith, ex-Afran Zenith, ex-La Nina) was converted in 1982 into a FSO Floating Storage and Offloading unit and was used until recently off Congo. This activity generates in the tanks and in the piping significant quantities of sediments and accumulates gases; these gases are susceptible to deadly explosions during the demolition. Such accidents have been recorded during the past years in Bangladesh.
