Turkish shipbreaking activities have geared up at a sea dock in western Turkey. Around five mega cruise ships have been arrived and started dismantling operations recently, Davis learnt from sources. The vessels arrived from Britain, Italy and the United States. Ship recycling has become a tool for many recyclers to change the crisis into an opportunity.
As many cruise ships have become obsolete after the pandemic hit the cruising industry, owners are opting to sell large vessels for recycling and generate money rather than holding them. In the dockside of Aliaga situated around 45km north of Izmir in the west coast is being flooded with the old parts including stripped walls, windows, floors and railings of cruise ships arrived for recycling activities. These materials are being briskly sold for recycling applications.
There are several more ships set to arrive in Turkey for dismantling giving a strong boost for recycling operations in the last quarter of 2020. The US authorities issued a no-sail order in March 2020 for all cruise ships, the same is in effect now and will remain for a few more months more, as per local media reports.
Ship recycling industrialists’ association said that the industry is witnessing a change in processes post-pandemic as ship recyclers are being offered with more and more large size ships such as cruise against the historically handled cargo and container ships. Around 2,500 workers are involved in cutting operations that could take around six months’ time to dismantle a full passenger ship.
Turkish shipyard aims to increase the volume of dismantled scrap to 900,000mt by the end of the year, from 700,000mt in January. Rising shipbreaking activities would create more domestic scrap supply for Turkish mills, however, its impact on ferrous scrap import volumes and prices is expected to remain low. Turkey imports around 20mn mt ferrous scrap annually.