Hamburg – The shipping company Hapag-Lloyd wants their used cargo ships will no longer sell on the used market, but environmentally friendly disposal in scrap yards. A corresponding change in the policy of the Board of Directors decided, confirmed a company spokesperson in Hamburg. This would ensure that the “Old Lady’s” do not end after decades of driving under extremely questionable environmental and social conditions on the beaches of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh Hapag-Lloyd.
More than a thousand cargo ships will be decommissioned and scrapped every year, most of them on the beaches of the Indian subcontinent. The ships contain tons of toxins, asbestos and lead on heavy metals and supplies to chemicals such as PCBs. According to the organization “The Shipbreaking Platform”, many of the workers do not even 15 years old and fatal accidents on the agenda. These states would Hapag-Lloyd afford a feed, the spokesman said.
“We welcome this move by Hapag-Lloyd greatly and hope that other shipping companies to take him as a model,” said Patrizia Heidegger, the director of the “Shipbreaking Platform”. According to her, disposed of the three largest shipping companies, only the Danish Maersk group their ships to European environmental and social standards.scrap value lucrative than mode
Previously sold Hapag-Lloyd, the retired ships to other operators and scored, this often good prices. The ships were then in service. “But we have found in recent years that the buyer have given the ships relatively quickly for scrapping,” said the spokesman. Background is many years lasting shipping crisis. The low freight rates and earnings of shipping companies have dropped sharply and the prices for used boats. This makes it more lucrative to redeem the scrap value, as to keep the ships in service.
In the past year were scrapped 655 ships in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The owners are, according to the London shipbroker EA Gibson for a ton of scrap in these countries 455-470 dollars; this makes for a smaller container ship 2.6 to 2.7 million dollars. In China, however, where the vessels are processed under the supervision of shipyards, the owner may only redeem $ 308 per tonne Altstahl, about a third less. Based on the whole ship is thus lost almost a million dollars.
So looks like the invoice for the first Hapag-Lloyd ship is wrecked on a Chinese shipyard. The “New Orleans Express”, built in 1989, a 240 meter long cargo ship with a capacity of 3,000 containers, ran last between the Mediterranean and Canada. For the environmentally friendly disposal in China renounced Hapag-Lloyd to about two million dollars.
ship funds rely on contracts
For this reason, Hapag-Lloyd is currently the only German shipping company which has decided to take such a step. It owns its own ships. “However, a large part of the German merchant fleet owned by many shareholders,” said Christof Schwaner from the German Shipowners’ Association (VDR). For funds ships the shipping company is contractually obliged to investors, the freighter to sell at the highest price. Heidegger sees this as an excuse. Finally, compliance with high environmental and social standards could be established in the contracts between shipowners and investors. But the contracts are like the ships several decades old.
Happy are also not the shipowner with the status quo. “The International Maritime Organization IMO has already adopted in 2009 the so-called Hong Kong Convention establishes uniform standards for worker safety and environmental protection in ship recycling world,” says VDR-chief executive Ralf Nagel. “This is a sharp sword.” But except for Norway, the Congo and France, no country has ratified the Convention. All other states can be so time – even Germany
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