Single-hull tanker phase-out amounts to confiscation: Greek shipowners

ATHENS (AFP) Jul 04, 2003
Greek shipowners said the decision to accelerate the phase-out of single-hull oil tankers in European waters amounted to the confiscation of assets, Greek media reported on Friday.

A recent European Union decision to send single-hull tankers to the scrapyards by 2010 amounted "to the confiscation of assets," the Newsfront shipping review quoted the head of the Union of Greek Shipowners as saying.

"Owners are entitled to claim compensation," the Union's president Nicos Efthymiou told reporters on Thursday.

Efthymiou said that 321 out of a total 488 Greek-controlled single-hull crude, product, chemical oil and bulk oil carriers will now have to be withdrawn within five years, instead of the earlier agreed deadline of 2015.

The Greek shipping community, the industry's biggest player worldwide, has strongly opposed the EU decision, warning the move would cause deep disruption to the international oil trade.

The EU measures were taken in response to the November sinking of the Prestige, an ageing single-hull tanker that went down off the coast of Spain, spilling 40,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into the Atlantic.

According to figures from the London-based Greek Shipping Cooperation Committee (GSCC), Greek companies control 9.3 percent of the world's ships in service and on order, 18.3 percent of deadweight tonnage and 15.9 percent of gross tonnage against 9.2, 17.8 and 15.5 respectively in 2002.

TERRA.WIRE