« Shipbreaking » # 47. The clear mirror of globalization
From January 1 to March 31, 2017, 225 ships out 240 were being demolished in India, in Bangladesh, in Pakistan, in China and in Turkey. 44 left for Asia for their last voyage under flags of financial or diplomatic convenience such as St. Kitts and Nevis, Palau, Togo, Niue or Mongolia. 76 ships had been built in Europe with European steel and Russian or Canadian asbestos. Only 5 ships are being broken up in European facilities.
“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.
