Rein Amels believes series construction of modern ships holds the key to efficient green ship demolition as well.
The co-founder of Dutch shipowning and recycling startup Elegant Exit Co has been both shipowner and shipbuilder. On the owning side, he served as managing director of W-O Shipping and Beluga Genchart. He also owns several ships in the fleet of Delfzijl-based multipurpose operator Amasus Shipping.
But his career has also included management positions at the Volharding and Sietas yards. And he was literally born in a shipyard. Amels Shipyard, which now builds megayachts under the ownership of the Damen group, was originally his family's business.
He told TradeWinds that his ideas about scrapping are based in part on shipbuilding experience.
"I have seen what series construction does," he said. "You can really achieve enormous efficiency advantages by building in series, so why wouldn't you be able to achieve similar advantages by ship scrapping in series?"
His company plans to buy series-built units and torch them in the order they were built, as their fourth special surveys come due.
"Your recycle date is set in the class certificates," he said.
That allows for long-term scheduling of precious dry-dock time and gives demolition crews a chance to develop efficiency as they reverse the newbuilding process, cutting hulls into blocks and removing them to secondary demolition areas on land for further work.
Amels disapproves of scrapping methods at yards in Aliaga and said Elegant Exit will not scrap in Turkey.
"If you look at videos from Aliaga, they run the ship at high speed onto a beach, cut it up in the water, hoist the steel out, and process it further on a concrete floor," he said. "We will do our scrapping in a closed dry dock."
He believes efficient green scrapping can yield a higher payout per tonne than Turkey offers, with South Asian scrap price levels as a benchmark.
On the end user's side, steelmakers under pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the share of recycled steel will pay a premium for quality scrap.
"Well-sorted, traceable steel is something these steelmakers are looking for," Amels said.
