Green ship dismantling
looks to Thailand as ideal location
By Jon Fernquest |
Today's Bangkok Post features a story on environmentally friendly ship demolition or ship breaking. (See Wikipedia on Ship Breaking)
Thailand is a natural place for "green" or environmentally friendly business ideas.
Even though levels of poverty are obviously a lot less than India and Bangladesh where most ship breaking takes place, Thailand still is still a "developing country" (or rather "emerging market economy") and has comparatively low wages.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) creates needed jobs, income, and on the job training, while the foreign firm that makes the investment also saves on labour costs and has the advantage of working in Thailand's comparatively stable system of laws governing foreign businesses and investments.
Thailand is open and cosmopolitan in its outlook. New ideas get play in the media and easily become part of mainstream thinking. Ideas like green tourism or green business are guiding more and more business ventures.
This makes Thailand a good place to get project visibility and awareness that there are alternatives to the usual pollution and labour exploitation of ship breaking.
Here is the article in full:
SHIPPING
Greendock studies green ship-dismantling operation
NAREERAT WIRIYAPONGMonday March 24, 2008
Greendock is patenting its system, which includes floating platforms where ships are dismantled before the scrap is set aside for recycling, significantly reducing pollution.
Netherlands-based Greendock BV is preparing to invest up to 175 million (8.4 billion baht) in Thailand within five years to build an environmentally friendly ship-dismantling facility, the first of its kind in the world.
The facility is expected to handle 700 used vessels out of a global fleet of 40,000 waiting to be demolished every year. These ships have been used for 25 years or more and are now being retired.
Doebren Mulder, co-founder and director of Greendock, said the company was looking at up to five ship-breaking docks in Thailand over the next three to five years, each costing 35 million. Overall, 20 docks would be built all over the world, most of which would be in Asia.
Thailand was considered the most favourable location for such facilities because of its welcoming business climate and its location between the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea, Mr Mulder said.
"We want to start first in Thailand and then possibly China, Singapore and Cambodia," Mr Mulder said during a visit to Thailand to begin a feasibility study for the project to study locations and local investment partners.
"We are looking for financial partners that could be banks or individual local venture capitalists."
Mr Mulder, whose background was in the shipping industry, teamed up with another Dutch entrepreneur, Marius van der Stoel, to form Greendock in 2006 to develop a dismantling company that creates less pollution and harm to vessel breakers.
Nowadays, ships considered at the end of their life are taken to beaches in India, Bangladesh or China where pollution regulations are not up to international standards.
The traditional open-air way of shipbreaking creates toxic waste that pollutes the seas and is harmful to workers, sparking complaints from environmentalists and the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
With Greendock, which was being patented worldwide, vessels would be drydocked on a floating platform in a closed space for dismantling. The wagon would cut the ship into equal-sized pieces and leave the scrap for recycling, Mr Mulder explained.
The process could take up to one month including pre-cleaning work, compared to five to eight months for the conventional method. A maximum of 24 ships could be dismantled a year, he added.
Jimmy Sim, chief executive of Bangkok-based Greendock Asia Co, said the feasibility study could take three months, including the lengthly environmental impact assessment (EIA) studies.
"The first dock could be built toward the end of this year," he said.
"We are looking at potential locations in Rayong like Laem Chabang and Map Ta Phut, as well as Prachuap Khiri Khan. Industrial estates located by the sea are the most suitable sites."
Mr Sim said that steel scrap remaining after dismantling would be supplied to steel plants in Thailand, which normally spends heavily on imported steel.
(Source: Bangkok Post, general news, 24-03-08, NAREERAT WIRIYAPONG, temp-link)
Vocabulary:
green - protecting the enironment from harm
emerging market economy - (See The Economist Glossary and Wikipedia)
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) - when foreign (See The Economist Glossary and Wikipedia)
on the job training - learning from practical experience while doing a job, rather than in school
cosmopolitan - open to different ideas and ways of doing things (because the place is full of people from many different cultures and countries)
visibility - the public can see some new product or business easily and become aware of its existence
dismantling - carefully separate something into all its parts, take apart
facilities - buildings, equipment, or services provided (See glossary)
ship-dismantling facility - a place with special equipment for taking ships apart
patenting - legal ownership rights to a business idea, "a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention" (See Wikipedia on patent)
scrap - metal taken from old things such as ships, cars, or machines
set aside for Y - keep something especially for use Y
recycling - "the reprocessing of old materials into new products, with the aims of preventing the waste of potentially useful materials, reducing the consumption of fresh raw materials and reducing energy usage, and thereby lowering greenhouse gas emissions" (See Wikipedia)
set aside for recycling - keep especially for recycling in the future
environmentally friendly - helps prevents the destruction of the environment (prevents pollution and greenhouse emissions)
demolished - to destroy completely
co- - do together with another person
co-founder of Y - Y was started with another person
a dock - a parking place for a ship
ship-breaking docks - places where ships are dismantled
welcoming business climate - when the government and people who live in a place have a positive attitude towards business and try to attract new business into the area
feasibility - possible to do and achieve
feasibility study for the project -
financial partners - people who invested in a business together
venture capitalists - a type of private equity capital typically provided by professional, outside investors to new, growth businesses (See Wikipedia)
X teamed up with Y - X joined with Y to work on a project together
a vessel - a ship
vessel breakers - workers who dismantle ships
regulations are not up to international standards -
a dry dock - a place where ships are brought up on land and repaired
drydocked - putting a ship on dry land to be repaired
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) - a report that details the likely positive and negative effects a project may have on the environment (See Wikipedia)
an industrial estate - an industrial park, an area of land specially developed for factories, usually located close to transport facilities
