An IMO number is supposed to outlive every change of name, flag and owner, and to end with the ship. Three numbers have not. Equasis lists the Kapten Caroq, the Auro and the Iria as scrapped, yet inspectors at Dongjiakou in China and Malacca in Malaysia have since recorded tankers under those numbers, as the Shaamit, the Latika and the Pepperoni. They flew the Cameroon or Tanzanian flag, with most of their certificates issued within the previous three weeks and most of those valid for only five months.
What the number no longer proves
The records leave three possibilities: a different hull using a scrapped ship’s number, an original that never reached the cutting yard, or records that are wrong. On the Shaamit and the Pepperoni the keel dates and deadweights do not fit the original ship, while gross tonnage is identical; on the Latika, keel date, deadweight and gross tonnage all match the Auro’s. The Tokyo MoU’s database files each new name under the old ship and rates all three as high risk, while Equasis shows “Broken Up” alongside the same inspections.
Search the Latika’s number and you get a sanctioned ship: the Auro is still on the EU, UK, Canadian and Swiss lists, though her status says she no longer exists. Search the Shaamit’s or the Pepperoni’s and no list comes up. A clean number proves little, and so, seemingly, does a “Broken Up” status.
Parliament can only object
The Commission’s plan to approve two Indian beaching yards reaches the European Parliament’s environment committee on 4 November, when MEPs debate and vote on an objection. The vote matters less than it looks: Parliament cannot block the listing, and if it objects the Commission need only review the draft and say whether it will keep, amend or withdraw it. The harder test is the Member States’ committee, where the list needs a positive opinion from a qualified majority; only four governments backed Shree Ram and YSI Recyclers on 21 September, and the Commission has yet to put the list to a vote. Its 19-page reply to seven governments defends the assessment but confirms that no unannounced inspection has yet been carried out at an Indian yard, and that both yards hold oil booms as emergency equipment rather than keeping them around the ships at all times. The EC's 2016 guidance makes booms a condition of counting a hull as an impermeable floor.
Yachts first
Peter Liese, the German centre-right MEP steering the carbon-market revision through the Parliament, and Mohammed Chahim, a Dutch MEP negotiating for the centre-left, have tabled amendments that would charge motorised private yachts over 24 metres on all emissions on voyages to or from an EU port; commercial ships pay for half on voyages between EU and non-EU ports. Mr Liese says yachts are the one issue on which there is already broad agreement: positions elsewhere remain far apart, by his own account, and two groups of MEPs from his own centre-right group want ships of 400 to 5,000 GT kept out altogether. The plenary vote is pencilled in for 14 December, and Mr Liese said environment ministers were due to reach a political agreement on 11 December.
Maritime Watch’s archive holds more than five thousand articles on EU maritime regulation, and this week’s coverage includes much more: the 20 tankers Kyiv wants the West to list, why the hunt for Russian diesel keeps finding fertiliser, RINA’s answers on the DIS-linked tankers, and France’s extension of its FuelEU exemptions to ferries from Toulon and Nice. Read it all at maritimewatch.eu. Free trials are available on request to editor@maritimewatch.eu.