Mere months remain before the International Maritime Organization’s Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships goes into force next June.
As the race for compliance enters the final stretch, 225 shipping and recycling sector stakeholders gathered in Copenhagen last week to take stock of what still needs to be done by the deadline.
They were in the Danish capital for TradeWinds’ annual ship recycling forum, which was held in the historic Axelborg Hall.
Dominating discussions was Bimco’s prediction that more than 15,000 ships would be recycled over the next 10 years.
That was greeted as good news for the ship recycling sector that over the past couple of years has seen demolition plummet to its lowest levels in decades.
However, it raised the question of whether Hong Kong Convention-compliant yards in major recycling nations — India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Turkey — could handle the anticipated influx.
Haresh Parmar, honourable secretary of the Ship Recycling Industries Association of India, said that yards in India are, to all intents and purposes, 100% compliant, and the focus among recyclers at Alang is on obtaining European Union approvals.
However, the dearth of demolition tonnage over the past two years has led to critical situations in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
According to Mohammed Zahirul Islam, vice president of the Bangladesh Ship Breakers and Recyclers Association, only five of the 32 active yards in Chattogram are currently certified under the Hong Kong Convention.
“We are hoping to see another 20 to 25 yards have HKC [Hong Kong Convention] certification by 2025,” he said.
Farrukh Punjwani, director of Gadani Beach-based Prime Ship Breakers, noted that no Pakistani ship recycling yards are Hong Kong Convention-ready today, and the pace of upgrading has been hampered by a near-total absence of ships arriving for demolition this year.
Konstantinos Galanis, chairman of the International Ship Recyclers Association, warned that strong markets keeping older vessels in service will likely exacerbate the issue in 2025, discouraging non-compliant yards from pursuing upgrades.
Dimitris Ayvatoglu, Leyal Group’s head of business development, predicted that recycling levels should begin to pick up in the second half of 2025.
Cash buyers and brokers echoed his view, predicting a gradual rebound rather than a sudden surge in recycling activity.
They anticipate smaller waves of ships being retired as various sectors phase out older vessels, which could ease pressure on compliant yards while encouraging further upgrades and reactivating mothballed facilities.
