The European Commission has approved to let European shipping companies send their vessels to Turkey’s Avsar and Simsekler shipbreaking yards in Aliaga, Izmir.
Turkey is one of the biggest consumers of ferrous scrap and has a big in the shipbreaking industry as well. According to media reports, 2pc of all ferrous scrap in Turkey comes from ships dismantled in Aliaga. With the two new approvals, the EU now has 10 certified ship recyclers in the region. Reports estimate that these yards can handle up to 500,000mt of ship scrap per year.
However, European ship dismantling amounts to about 2mn mt of ferrous scrap on an annual basis. Media reports suggest that Aliaga’s 22 scrapyards can handle only about half of that volume. Thus, European shipowners are urging the EU to permit shipyards from other countries to accept ships for dismantling as only firms that are on the list can process EU ships, since 2018.