Damaged, Detained, and Beyond Their Limit: The Recycling Problem Nobody Is Planning For
The attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz and the broader Red Sea region over the past two years have brought a practical question to the surface that the industry has been slow to address: what actually happens to a vessel when it sustains serious damage in a conflict zone, or when its commercial and regulatory status makes standard repair and recycling pathways inaccessible? For a vessel with conventional ownership, valid class, and adequate insurance, the answer is complicated enough. For a damaged vessel operating outside those structures, or one that is sanctioned, the answer continues to be almost nowhere.
The shadow fleet is the clearest example of what happens when sanctions intended as a protective measure create a different kind of risk. Vessels operating under flags of convenience, without P&I cover, and well past their design life are doing so because there is no regulated pathway off the water for them. Sanctions close doors. They do not create alternatives. The result is that aging, uninsured tonnage continues to move hazardous cargo through some of the world's most sensitive waterways, crewed by seafarers who have limited recourse if something goes wrong. When one of those vessels is attacked, runs aground, or simply breaks down, the options for responsible handling are essentially non-existent under the current framework. The vessel either stays where it is, gets beached informally, or disappears from tracking entirely.
There needs to be a serious conversation at the regulatory level about sanctioned vessel recycling pathways. Mechanisms that allow responsible end-of-life handling even where ownership structures are opaque or access to standard yards is restricted. Protecting seafarers and managing the environmental risk of these vessels does not have to mean normalizing the ownership structures behind them. The recycling community, classification societies, flag states, and regulators all have a role to play in working out what that looks like. Calmocean operates across the yards and regions where these vessels are most likely to end up, and we would like to see a positive resolution to the issue at hand.