IRClass Systems and Solutions, an entity promoted by Indian Register of Shipping, has issued EU ship recycling regulation compliance certificates to four ship recycling yards in Alang, India.
The four yards which have met the standards set by the EU and the Hong Kong Convention are Priya Blue Industries, Shree Ram Vessel Scrap, R.L. Kalathia Ship Breaking, and Leela Ship Recycling.
These recycling yards are India’s first recycling yards to be certified based on EU standards and have submitted their applications for inclusion in the EU recognized yards list. The deadline for application submission was 30 June 2016 and the yard list is expected to be released by December.
India is home to one of the largest ship breaking facilities in the world with over 150 yards along its coast. On an average, close to 6.2 Million GT is scrapped in India every year, which accounts for 33% of the total scrapped tonnage in the world. Recently, however, health and environmental concerns have led to adoption of new policy regimes at international level.
The policy on EUSRR mandates vessels under the EU flag to be scrapped in recognized ship breaking yards. In the past four years, approximately 310 EU flagged vessels were scrapped, out of which 107 were scrapped in India, amounting close to 4.3 Million tons in deadweight. A recognition from EU will allow these Indian yards to become a preferred option over others in the area in coming years, IRClass said.
EU ship recycling regulation has entered into force at the end of 2013, and its requirements are phased-in between 31 December 2015 and 31 December 2020.
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