Brussels — The Maersk-owned floating oil
production and storage tanker, North Sea Producer, left the UK in May 2016 and
was beached in August at the Janata Steel shipbreaking yard in Chittagong.
According to NGO Shipbreaking Platform, the vessel is likely to contain large
amounts of highly contaminated residues including natural occurring radioactive
material. The tidal beach, where the ship is currently being torn apart, is
known for the human rights abuses and environmental pollution caused by
substandard shipbreaking. The tanker’s export from the UK for demolition in
Bangladesh was illegal under the European Waste Shipment Regulation.
The NGO Shipbreaking Platform calls on the UK
Government to hold the Maersk-owned North Sea Production Company responsible
for illegal trafficking in hazardous waste. The Platform has send a letter to
the UK Environment Minister on 25 October.
The North Sea Producer was owned and operated
by UK-based North Sea Production Company, a joint venture between Danish Maersk
and Brazilian oil & gas company Odebrecht, with 50 percent ownership each.
Having operated in the North Sea as an oil and gas floating production storage
and offloading (FPSO) vessel, the vessel is likely to contain large amounts of
residues that are contaminated by natural occurring radioactive material and
sulphur in addition to the various other hazardous materials in its structure and
tanks. The Bangladesh shipbreaking yards are not equipped with any
infrastructure that could safely remove and dispose of such toxic wastes.
According NGO Shipbreaking Platform, the North Sea Producer was allowed into
Bangladesh based on a fake certificate stating that the tanker did not contain
any hazardous materials. The import of end-of-life ships containing hazardous
waste into Bangladesh is banned, but circumvented with such false documents.
“If Maersk sells a contaminated old oil
tanker to an anonymous post box company in the Caribbean under the pretense of
further operation use, this is at best a total failure of due diligence, if not
punishable negligence. We expect the UK authorities to hold all involved
companies responsible for illegal hazardous waste trafficking”, said Patrizia
Heidegger, Executive Director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform.
“It is highly likely that the North Sea
Production Company sold the ship directly to cash buyers GMS (Global Marketing
Systems), via an anonymous post box company in St. Kitts and Nevis. GMS is one
of the world’s largest companies that specialises in selling end-of-life
tonnage to the beaching yards in South Asia”, commented Patrizia Heidegger.
“While GMS has recently been extremely busy in polishing its image with claims
of ‘green ship recycling’, the company’s track record – and obvious continued
practice – tells another story. GMS continues to strike deals with some of the
worst shipbreaking yards in the world, including those in Bangladesh where hazardous
waste management capacity is completely absent, where illegal child labour
persists, and where workers are killed or maimed in accidents that could have
been avoided.”.
And she added: “We are asking governments to
effectively prevent any future illegal waste trafficking as we have seen with
the case of the North Sea Producer. The large number of vessels and structures
used in the North Sea that will need to be decommissioned in the coming years
should prompt public strategies for the creation of jobs in the EU that promise
the environmentally sound recovery of valuable resources.”
Source: NGO Shipbreaking Platform
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