More than 15,000 older ships could be scrapped over the next decade as owners get to grips with decarbonisation targets.

Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst of shipowners’ organisation Bimco, has been crunching the numbers on the fate of an increasingly elderly merchant fleet.

He believes the likely level of recycling will be more than double the figure for the past 10 years.

“Over the next 10 years, from 2023 to 2032, more than 15,000 ships with deadweight capacity of more than 600m tonnes are expected to be recycled,” Rasmussen said.

He argues that as scrap volumes increase, it is increasingly important that the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe & Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships is ratified and implemented.

“In fact, recycling steel in electric arc furnaces emits significantly less greenhouse gases than the production of crude steel, and as the electricity grid becomes decarbonised, emissions will reduce further. Therefore, ship recycling can continue to play a key role in the circular economy,” he said.

The top four recyclers, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Turkey, have accounted for 96% of dwt capacity broken up during the past five years.

In the last decade, breakers handled 7,780 ships of 285m dwt, Bimco figures show.

Six in 10 of these vessels were built in the 1990s.

During the next 10 years, vessels dating mainly from the 2000s will exit the fleet.

This was a boom decade for shipbuilding, with more than double the capacity of the previous 10 years being delivered.

“Deadweight capacity built during the 2010s increased by a further 65%, which could lead to even higher levels of recycling 10 to 20 years from now,” Rasmussen said.

He is extrapolating scrapping figures based on an assumption that about half of bulker, tanker and boxship capacity has historically been torched by 25 years of age.

“Many older ships are expected to be recycled earlier than normal due to the ever-tighter limits on greenhouse gas emissions,” he concluded.