so these ships are abandoned by the companies that own them, with the crew still on board? and then the crew is just stuck there with dwindling food supplies until somebody comes to rescue them?
in my head this seems like a problem that could be solved by getting on the radio to a nearby port and saying "hey, we've got a tanker carrying $50m worth of crude oil, you can have it if you let us dock", but obviously it can't be that simple if that's not happening. why not?
This seems like one of those problems that arise when we let rich people and corporations arbitrage for the lowest possible legal consequences, in this case flags of convenience that have no standards.
There is always some poor or corrupt country willing to ignore consequences as long as they can make a buck. The profits are private, but costs and consequences always laid onto the public. Miserable way to run things.
>There is always some poor or corrupt country willing to ignore consequences as long as they can make a buck.
this is basically what i'm suggesting as the solution here, rather than the problem.
if you're in command of a tanker carrying $50m worth of oil, and the company that technically owns it owes you and your crew $175k and doesn't want to pay, surely you're never too far from a country who would be happy to take that boat off your hands and cover the lost wages. how are these boats just waiting around in the ocean for a solution, when there's so much wealth on board?
When you are flying a foreign flag docked in a port you are complex legal situation - in international law, you follow the laws of the flag country, in addition to being under local jurisdiction (most of the time). And if you’re flying a flag for a boat that’s not registered under that flag, which as this article explains is easily verifiable, who is going to buy the oil, and how? not to mention any possible international sanctions on the oil, customs, the crew getting paid and wanting to return home, wherever that may be, and you get situations that can last for a long time. For this case a boat to boat transfer may be the only real way.
Your comment hints at another problem, which is that allowing the cargo into a port possibly could be exploited as a loophole to break sanctions.
Yet another big problem is that cargo might be too low in value, or even undesirable. Like the cargo of Ammonium Nitrate that exploded in Beirut a few years ago (it had been taken off the docked ship which then sank in the port. The cargo was stored in the port, then stuck in legal and payment disputes, and the result was horrific).
They have control of the ship, but the ship doesn't own the cargo! It's not legally theirs to sell.
As staff who are presumably looking to eventually get another job in shipping, they have to follow the rules even if it's not clear what they are or the owner isn't following them.
The fact that the cargo is sanctioned makes it even more likely that a port will say "we're not touching that".
The "flag of convenience" situation .. well, it's a great way of evading legal responsibility, but it's also a very old one. That's going to persist for some time to come.
> As staff who are presumably looking to eventually get another job in shipping, they have to follow the rules even if it's not clear what they are or the owner isn't following them.
Interesting setup that the lowly crew have to follow the rules to stay in shipping but the owner doesn’t.
Usual story of the little guy getting screwed.
Much like hiring undocumented people for work, the rules need to be changed so the owners get immense fines in these situations.
> so these ships are abandoned by the companies that own them, with the crew still on board? and then the crew is just stuck there with dwindling food supplies until somebody comes to rescue them?
Yes, basically. The situation is really really nasty, every year thousands of sailors are stuck aboard abandoned ships [1][2]. Sometimes, crews get stuck for years [3] - and the situation is made worse by the fact that leaving ship means forfeiting payment.
Is there such a thing as mid-ocean fuel transfer? I can imagine some intrepid individuals strike up a bargain to siphon the fuel off of the abandoned ship onto one with the appropriate paperwork.
If the crew is mistreated they should sell the boat and all of the contents, including the oil.
Yes, many countries don't have the capacity to refine a large amount, but there are many simple techniques such as even heating the oil that any country can do.
There are always buyers up the chain and in neighboring countries that will buy it. Even arrangements from buyers across the world.
People ignore sanctions all the time. It's part of a free world and free trade. Similar to the legacy laws on the books that everyone and their mother ignores. It is much easier to simply go on with your life and when everyone ignores the law, it gets removed. Politicians don't want to be seen as weaker than they already are so they remove the law very quickly.
When my dad passed away somewhere along the years of various moves and owners of the boat my mom or my uncle of my brother in law had lost the title to the boat and it was such a huge family debacle for YEARS because no one could prove who the owner was and they had to go through the estate to contact each owner of the boat through all the years since it was made every single person who ever had possession of the boat before it could be given away or sold to make sure it was not stolen it was the biggest headache for my mom and sisters and I to deal with. Also the hull, trailer and motor all had separate titles.
Now whenever I see an abandoned boat somewhere I'm like... they must have illegally dumped it because they lost the title and couldn't handle the administrative burden!!
This kind of thing seems to be pretty core to the oil industry business model. In the US when they don't want to deal with an oil well anymore they have whatever fake shell company owns it declare bankruptcy and then they don't have to deal with cleaning it up (https://www.propublica.org/article/oil-orphan-wells-cleanup-...).
This is a feature of all resource extraction industry. I live in New York - we have 100+ year old oil related hazards in western NY to this day. My folks had a gravel mine near their home that would occasionally cause issues relating to flooding and some sort of contamination that was there.
IMO, these industries need to be heavily taxed if not owned by the government.
>IMO, these industries need to be heavily taxed if not owned by the government.
The problem with this is that it adds cost to the commodity and now you can't properly compete on a world stage against extraction that comes from other jurisdictions that are paid enough to not care. The world free trade regime really needs a rethink if we are going to have proper standards for extraction like this. Say, a trading bloc of ethical commerce. If countries don't play ball then they're out, and unannounced compliance inspections should occur all over the trading bloc ran by an independent member-state multinational institution.
What stops the government from doing the same thing as private industry?
My (insane) personal opinion is that resource extraction is inherently politically corrosive and we should start seriously thinking of a plan to sunset it. Resource wealth is inherently feudalist, the incentives it offers run contrary to any sane economic system, and any resource wealth that is extracted distorts the market.
> IMO, these industries need to be heavily taxed if not owned by the government.
... or for every building and infrastructure, a bond needs to be placed with the government to be a safeguard for its demolition cost, and for projects that risk environmental damage (mining, oil drills), proof of insurance needs to be provided before the construction begins, and should that insurance ever lapse, the entire property gets seized by the government.
An easier solution would be to simply require companies to pay a bond for the cost of closing down operations before they’re allowed to start extracting resources.
There is a silver lining to this particular catastrophe. A large fraction of the abandoned tankers are a result of sanctions on Russia. It means they're working. Ukraine cares very much about these ships, having damaged a dozen tankers with their "kinetic sanctions" in the past year. They care because the oil is both a war material and a major source of Russian revenue. More abandoned tankers means a weaker Russia.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, you're (I think, implicitly) claiming that reducing Russian oil revenues doesn't impact their war capabilities. Why would that be the case?
This is another one of those things that, having put no thought into it as something that has sat in the background of life since childhood, I had figured was better organised/protected against malicious, negligent and/or fraudulent behaviour.
The world is far more of a chaotic jungle than the facade makes it appear. There is yet much opportunity for mischief for those who dare and have the resources and lack of moral compass.
Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. -- Albert Camus
The ease/comfort of our so-called "Modern Civilization" is built on illusions constructed intentionally by people-in-power/govts-in-collusion. People are kept distracted and managed using techniques of propaganda and reflexive control.
The developed/richer countries take advantage of the developing/poorer countries by offshoring dangerous/poisonous/etc. industries/work onto them while mouthing platitudes and absolving themselves of all responsibilities.
If you start asking questions (and educate yourself) on how-a-thing-comes-to-be from first principles, what happens to it after its end-of-life, the effects on the people involved in the entire chain (from birth to death) you will rise up in arms to tear the system down and rebuild it all.
Here for example is a shocking article on waste tyres from around the world being sent to India to be disposed off and how the entire process literally poisons poor people forced to do that job; The Black Wind: How India is becoming the World's Waste Tyre Furnace - https://www.reporters-collective.in/trc/india-is-becoming-wo...
Readit News
https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/the-toxic-tide-of-sh...
The toxic tide of ship breaking https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34905496 - 30 comments
Unforgettable.
https://youtu.be/KVm8G0ipETc
in my head this seems like a problem that could be solved by getting on the radio to a nearby port and saying "hey, we've got a tanker carrying $50m worth of crude oil, you can have it if you let us dock", but obviously it can't be that simple if that's not happening. why not?
There is always some poor or corrupt country willing to ignore consequences as long as they can make a buck. The profits are private, but costs and consequences always laid onto the public. Miserable way to run things.
this is basically what i'm suggesting as the solution here, rather than the problem.
if you're in command of a tanker carrying $50m worth of oil, and the company that technically owns it owes you and your crew $175k and doesn't want to pay, surely you're never too far from a country who would be happy to take that boat off your hands and cover the lost wages. how are these boats just waiting around in the ocean for a solution, when there's so much wealth on board?
Yet another big problem is that cargo might be too low in value, or even undesirable. Like the cargo of Ammonium Nitrate that exploded in Beirut a few years ago (it had been taken off the docked ship which then sank in the port. The cargo was stored in the port, then stuck in legal and payment disputes, and the result was horrific).
As staff who are presumably looking to eventually get another job in shipping, they have to follow the rules even if it's not clear what they are or the owner isn't following them.
The fact that the cargo is sanctioned makes it even more likely that a port will say "we're not touching that".
The "flag of convenience" situation .. well, it's a great way of evading legal responsibility, but it's also a very old one. That's going to persist for some time to come.
Interesting setup that the lowly crew have to follow the rules to stay in shipping but the owner doesn’t.
Usual story of the little guy getting screwed.
Much like hiring undocumented people for work, the rules need to be changed so the owners get immense fines in these situations.
Yes, basically. The situation is really really nasty, every year thousands of sailors are stuck aboard abandoned ships [1][2]. Sometimes, crews get stuck for years [3] - and the situation is made worse by the fact that leaving ship means forfeiting payment.
[1] https://www.voanews.com/a/fleet-of-abandoned-ships-is-growin...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3r4nr2zy2do
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56842506
Yes, many countries don't have the capacity to refine a large amount, but there are many simple techniques such as even heating the oil that any country can do.
There are always buyers up the chain and in neighboring countries that will buy it. Even arrangements from buyers across the world.
People ignore sanctions all the time. It's part of a free world and free trade. Similar to the legacy laws on the books that everyone and their mother ignores. It is much easier to simply go on with your life and when everyone ignores the law, it gets removed. Politicians don't want to be seen as weaker than they already are so they remove the law very quickly.
Now whenever I see an abandoned boat somewhere I'm like... they must have illegally dumped it because they lost the title and couldn't handle the administrative burden!!
Groups also when the host country wants a layer of deniability.
IMO, these industries need to be heavily taxed if not owned by the government.
The problem with this is that it adds cost to the commodity and now you can't properly compete on a world stage against extraction that comes from other jurisdictions that are paid enough to not care. The world free trade regime really needs a rethink if we are going to have proper standards for extraction like this. Say, a trading bloc of ethical commerce. If countries don't play ball then they're out, and unannounced compliance inspections should occur all over the trading bloc ran by an independent member-state multinational institution.
My (insane) personal opinion is that resource extraction is inherently politically corrosive and we should start seriously thinking of a plan to sunset it. Resource wealth is inherently feudalist, the incentives it offers run contrary to any sane economic system, and any resource wealth that is extracted distorts the market.
... or for every building and infrastructure, a bond needs to be placed with the government to be a safeguard for its demolition cost, and for projects that risk environmental damage (mining, oil drills), proof of insurance needs to be provided before the construction begins, and should that insurance ever lapse, the entire property gets seized by the government.
Dead Comment
The world is far more of a chaotic jungle than the facade makes it appear. There is yet much opportunity for mischief for those who dare and have the resources and lack of moral compass.
The ease/comfort of our so-called "Modern Civilization" is built on illusions constructed intentionally by people-in-power/govts-in-collusion. People are kept distracted and managed using techniques of propaganda and reflexive control.
The developed/richer countries take advantage of the developing/poorer countries by offshoring dangerous/poisonous/etc. industries/work onto them while mouthing platitudes and absolving themselves of all responsibilities.
If you start asking questions (and educate yourself) on how-a-thing-comes-to-be from first principles, what happens to it after its end-of-life, the effects on the people involved in the entire chain (from birth to death) you will rise up in arms to tear the system down and rebuild it all.
Here for example is a shocking article on waste tyres from around the world being sent to India to be disposed off and how the entire process literally poisons poor people forced to do that job; The Black Wind: How India is becoming the World's Waste Tyre Furnace - https://www.reporters-collective.in/trc/india-is-becoming-wo...
(any human trafficking is purely conincidental and not supported by us)