Canada Eyes the Shipbreaking Biz
Canadian companies can get into the business of scrapping and recycling ships that have outweighed their useful life, reports Financial Post.
The government of Canada through Transport Canada has called tender for “an assessment of the current Canadian capacity for small and large vessel recycling.”
When the life span is over, the ships are being sold to the countries that specialize in shipbreaking, such as Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan and Turkey. This has been happening for the past few decades.
When they scrap the ships, firms in these countries recover huge quantities of steel.
Transport Canada says that some ships in the country are not even worth towing overseas: dock yards and shore lines across Canada are increasingly littered with abandoned, discarded ships.
The document, Marine Vessel End-of-Life Cycle Management, quotes a recent Transport Canada inventory shows 22 abandoned vessels that are over 100 ft in length and made of steel.
Transport Canada’s efforts to encourage a domestic ship recycling industry come as Canada has largely retreated from the business of building ships.
Until recently Canada retained a 25% tariff on the import to Canada of foreign-built ships. The penalty failed to inspire orders for domestic-built ships, however, and in 2010 Canada scrapped the tariff.