The former passenger ferry M/S C Express, currently anchored in the port of Vaasa in Western Finland, has become the subject of an international bureaucratic dispute about the final fate of scrap ships. In July this year the Finnish Environment Institute barred the ship from leaving Vaasa, due to serious doubts that the vessel would end up being scrapped in the hazardous conditions of the infamous ‘ship graveyards’ of the Indian subcontinent. 

C Express was built in 1966 and used for passenger traffic on the Gulf of Bothnia. After being out of use for two years, it was sold to Attar Construction Ltd. Attar has close links to Jupiter Ship Management. This Indian-registered company was involved in the case of M/S Kong Frederik IX, a vessel which left Denmark supposedly for further use in cargo traffic, but ended up being scrapped in the Indian subcontinent, in spite of the Danish authorities’ worries that hazardous materials in the ship would endanger scrap workers and pollute the environment. 

Partly because of such cases, SYKE issued a transport ban on M/S C Express on 11 July. The low price paid for this ageing vessel raised serious doubts about its future. The new owners denied any plans to scrap the vessel, stating that their first plan was to transform C Express into a floating casino ship in the Far East. But it then emerged that Attar Construction was planning to lease the vessel complete with its crew to another company for a fixed period. Attar Construction also appealed to the Helsinki Administrative Court, claiming that suspicions about scrapping do not represent adequate grounds for a transport ban.

At the moment, the owners of C Express are still negotiating about selling the ship to a third party, and the appeal process has been extended by the Finnish authorities until 2 November.

The EU Commission has published a ‘green paper’ on issues related to the scrapping of ships, describing the associated problems, which include poor safety levels, serious health risks, and the likelihood of noxious substances being released into the environment if due care is not taken. Hazardous substances that can be released during the scrapping of ships include asbestos, oil, oil sludge, PCB, and the heavy metals used in paints.

The large quantities of reusable steel that can be obtained from disused ships make scrapping a highly lucrative business in low-cost countries. The notorious ship graveyards of India are the last port-of-call for many vessels, but SYKE aims to prevent one more such case.

For more information:

• Leading Expert Risto Saarinen, risto.saarinen@environment.fi

• Chief Inspector Jonne Säylä, jonne.sayla@environment.fi

• SYKE's press releases
• EU's Green paper on better ship dismantling (pdf)

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