Vessel & Ship Metal Scrap

End-of-life vessels on LDT and the plate, machinery and bronze they yield

Ships are not bought by the tonne of scrap. They are bought on light displacement tonnage — the weight of the vessel herself, empty of cargo, bunkers and stores — because LDT is the closest available proxy for the steel that will come out of her, and the market quotes in US dollars per LDT rather than per tonne. As a rough frame, a Panamax bulker runs somewhere around 9,000–12,000 LDT, a Capesize 18,000–25,000, a VLCC 35,000–45,000, with feeder container ships, ferries, tugs, barges and offshore units filling the smaller end from a few hundred LDT upward. What moves an individual ship away from the headline market level is her composition: the ratio of re-rollable plate to melting scrap, how much machinery is aboard and whether the main engine is intact, the non-ferrous content — a large propeller alone can be 15–25 tonnes of manganese or nickel-aluminium bronze — the stainless in pipework and galley, and the bunkers remaining on board at delivery, which are separately valued and can be a meaningful line on a big ship. LDT itself is verified from the stability booklet and general arrangement plan rather than taken on trust. Sales conclude "as is where is" on a memorandum of agreement — commonly BIMCO's RECYCLECON or DEMOLISHCON form — with the vessel delivered under her own power to the anchorage off the recycling yard, or handed over at a nominated port such as Fujairah or Singapore for the last voyage.

The output is where most of our buyers actually sit. A typical dry-cargo vessel gives up roughly 60–70% of her LDT as re-rollable steel plate: hull and deck plate cut to size and sold straight to re-rolling mills, above all the rolling belt around Bhavnagar in Gujarat, where it becomes rebar and light sections without ever passing through a furnace. That is why re-rollable commands a premium over melting scrap — the buyer is paying for steel that skips the melt entirely, with the energy cost and yield loss that implies. Another 15–20% comes off as melting scrap in HMS 1 & 2 form for electric-arc and induction charges, generally clean, thick, unalloyed plate that a melt shop is happy to see. The balance carries a second-hand value rather than a scrap value: main and auxiliary engines, generators, pumps, compressors, winches, windlasses, anchors and chain, navigation and safety equipment. Then the non-ferrous fraction — propellers, copper cabling looms running the length of the ship, brass and bronze valves and fittings, aluminium superstructure and accommodation panelling. We work both ends of that chain: sourcing vessels for recycling yards and cash buyers, and sourcing the cut output — re-rollable plate, ship-plate HMS, marine non-ferrous — for mills, foundries and traders who never want to touch a ship.

Compliance is now the gate, not the paperwork that follows the deal. The Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships entered into force on 26 June 2025, and a vessel going for recycling under it needs a maintained Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM Part I), a Ship Recycling Plan prepared by the facility for that specific ship, and an International Ready for Recycling Certificate — sold into a yard holding a valid Document of Authorisation to conduct Ship Recycling. EU-flagged tonnage sits under a stricter regime again: Regulation (EU) No 1257/2013 requires recycling at a facility on the European List, which covers yards in Europe, the UK, Türkiye and the USA and does not currently include any facility in India, Bangladesh or Pakistan — a fact that decides the destination before the price does. A ship destined for scrapping can additionally be waste under the Basel Convention depending on where she is when the decision to scrap is taken, which is why the timing and place of sale matter as much as the number. Practically, that means surveying and declaring asbestos, PCBs, ozone-depleting substances and TBT antifouling, removing residual oils, sludge and bilge, and issuing a gas-free-for-hot-work certificate before a torch is lit. We place vessels only with yards that can produce their authorisation, arrange class-society Statements of Compliance and IHM survey where they are missing, and structure payment through LC or staged TT against delivery.