NYK leads Japan’s return to ship recycling

 

 

Japanese shipping line Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) has moved to bring back ship recycling to the island country in East Asia.

The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with compatriot Oono Development to commercialise a business that would enable ships and large offshore structures to be dismantled in Japan and recycled as steel scrap and other materials.

As Japan’s steel industry shifts to electric arc furnaces, an emphasis on shipbreaking might alleviate the long-standing issue of impurities in steel scrap, ushering in a new age of steel production.

Ships are made of large amounts of high-quality steel, and more than 90% of medium and large vessels are recycled as construction materials, recycled materials, or used products.

NYK said that scrap with low impurity content, which is difficult to remove from molten steel, is becoming increasingly valuable as a high-quality iron resource, but to realise sustainable recycling, ship dismantling work that considers safe, environmentally friendly, and efficient methods is required.

In 2023.NGO Shipbreaking Platform calculated that the Japanese steel sector lost the opportunity to recycle about 1.5m tonnes of scrap steel from Japanese-owned end-of-life ships.

“While this figure may not seem relevant now, expert forecasts are indicating that the number of ships needing to be scrapped will quadruple in the next decade. This means that Japan will have to acknowledge that recycling high-quality scrap steel from Japanese vessels represents a promising solution for contributing to Japan’s carbon neutrality objectives,” the coalition campaigning for clean and safe ship recycling told Splash, adding that it is “not aware of any current activity in Japan for the dismantling of ocean-going vessels”.

The plan is to have ships dismantled at Japan’s only recycling dry dock, which can handle large ships and is owned by Oono Development in Chita City, Aichi Prefecture. Ehime-based Oono Development is engaged in various environment-related businesses, ranging from demolition to waste disposal. The company’s dry dock is one of the largest in Japan and can dismantle two large ships simultaneously, NYK said.

Ship recycling has largely been dominated by Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Turkey since China closed the market for recycling foreign flagged ships in 2019. Other countries, such as Egypt, Brazil and Bahrain, have also recently moved to enter the sector, which is anticipated to see a rapid increase in demand by 2028.

Electric arc furnaces are not yet producing pricey shipbuilding-grade steel plates, but if possible, the raw material from ship scrap metal reborn as thick plates for shipyards could potentially lead to completely circular newbuilds.

“As far as we understand, since 1990, there have been almost no cases of ship recycling in Japan,” NYK told Splash.