"Maersk would still look at Alang for doing Panamax vessels but the post Panamax ones which will stop a few hundred metres away for different reasons is something which is not what we can have responsibly recycled at Alang", says Capt Prashant Widge, Head of ESG & Public Affairs, South Asia, A. P. Moller-Maersk, FT's Infra reported.
Denmark's A.Ρ. Moller-Maersk Group A/S, which runs Maersk Line, the world's second largest container carrier, foresee a "challenge" in recycling big post Panamax ships globally, including at Alang in Gujarat, when the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (HKC) enter into force on 26 June next year, a top executive has said.
"We have a challenge with big ships, big post Panamax ships to be recycled responsibly across the globe," Capt Prashant Widge, Head of ESG & Public Affairs, South Asia, A. P. Moller-Maersk, said at a panel discussion held by the Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO) in Mumbai on 2 December. "Maersk has been quite vocal about this," he stated.
Maersk, Capt Prashant said, would "still look at Alang for doing Panamax vessels but the post Panamax ones which will stop a few hundred metres away for different reasons is something which is not what we can have responsibly recycled at Alang".
The "different reasons" that Capt Prashant alluded to for Alang's inability to recycle post Panamax ships is the lack of adequate draft to bring larger ships directly to the recycling plots.
"The post Panamax ships are beached half a km away and then they have to be pulled by workers to the recycling plots. They (Maersk) don't want that; they have that mindset," said a ship recycling official at Alang.