The shadowy world of abandoned oil tankers | Hacker News Reader

The shadowy world of abandoned oil tankers

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Reminds me of the Shipbreakers article from 3 years ago:

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.

The video used for this fan-made film clip is from a documentary called Working Man's Death about ship breaking:

https://youtu.be/KVm8G0ipETc

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?

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).

let the crew paint a new flag for the country they want to dock at.

Pirates aren’t normally treated… well.

The US Navy seems to do quite well.

Under international law piracy has the for “private ends” clause when defining piracy meaning nation states can’t really do piracy but instead commerce raiding which is a form of warfere.

Whatever verbiage you use doesn't change the fact that Trump is just another war criminal in a long line of war criminals, starting with Truman.

With a small bribe they will be allowed in. No one is caring about the silly flag.

these are usually very poor crew trying to escape desperate circumstances. they arent in a bargaining position and are easy prey to pirates depending on the part of the world they are in. Since they’re ghost ships, anyone could basically take what they pleased without anyone knowing, not to mention whatever country is willing to take an unregistered ship to offload oil in amounts that someone annoying could notice.

it’s a bad situation for everyone but the seller that convinced the ship it could turn it around.

This is literally everything wrong with the tech industry in a single comment.

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?

I don't think it's as easy to offload oil as you're assuming. Most of the sketchy countries don't have refineries or storage capacity and they risk some fallout from the sanctions if they do anything with the oil. Like maybe if you could get the boat to North Korea they might pay you $0.01 on the dollar or something.

I think their problem is that very few countries have refinery capacity to deal with crude oil, which is what these ships contain. So the crew have limited choices. It is a "someone else's problem", to quote the Hitchhiker's Guide.

It's not that simple. The stranded vessels are often not really seaworthy and can't be safely sailed to another port. They might be low on fuel with no cash to buy more (the cargo won't necessarily work as fuel). The vessel may be docked in a port already and owe fees to the local authorities who won't allow it to leave.

> 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.

[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

Thanks, that was very interesting. Another reminder of how fucked up our world is.

That's how fucked up our world is outside the jurisdiction of a well functioning government and an engaged and educated populace. It's only as nice as we decide to make it.

the thing is, technically "convenience flags" are outside our jurisdiction... but the companies owning the ships? the companies chartering the ships?

these are in Western jurisdictions. We could hold them accountable, but we don't, because freight companies are insanely well connected in politics and too many too rich people profit too much from this kind of exploitation.

I remember with COVID a lot of sailors got stuck and nobody felt responsibility to do anything for them.

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.

Yes, although it's expensive so eats up a lot of margin. It's one aof the common ways sanctioned oil is whitewashed.

Probably fear. Putin's nazi mafia could dispose of the crew or target their families if they do that.

Or Trump's pirate navy could call them drug dealers and blow them out of the water.

They work for Putin's war, so they they should be treated as hostile navy anyway. They'd be lucky if they'll end up arrested and not blown up. Ukraine does blow them up already when opportunity presents itself.

The world is lucky that President Putin is a rational actor.

Trump and his neocon masters on the other hand seem to be itching to start WW-3.

As for The Ukraine - there's no such thing as "Ukraine" - if they are lucky they will be left with a rump state, hopefully landlocked.

If Putin was a rational actor he probably wouldn't be putting up WWI casualty numbers to capture podunk towns in east Ukraine that few people care about

Take a look at the body exchange ratios. For every KIA body The Ukraine returns to Russia, they get back 20 to 30.

Of course, you don't know this because the West has censored real news.

Axis Sally detected. Putin is a fascist scum and only his mouthpieces claim that "there is no Ukraine".

That's risible, coming from a country where oil, pharma and the military complex openly run the government via "lobbying."

BTW, if Putin had placed missiles and nukes in say Cuba what do you think would have happened? Oh wait, we already know. The charming JFK showed us.

The problem with debating USAians on the internet is that not only are they woefully inadequately educated, they also completely lack self-awareness.

Are you paid for it or you spread fascist koolaid for free? Either way, Putin's money is running out. So unless you are a propaganda zombie, you can forget about relying on your fascist boss.

The last refuge of the uneducated: slurs.

I don't need to show respect to Axis Sallies.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...

Me trying to educate the wilfully ignorant.

Doing Goebbels's "education"? Better learn some history.

I genuinely laughed out loud at this comment. Are you even dimly aware that you're following Goebbels' playbook?

Hilarious.

https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb59...

Typical Putin-style garbage - blaming others for your own faults. No one buys your koolaid here, fascist troll. Go troll your masters.

Yawn. Like I said, wilfully ignorant.

https://open.substack.com/pub/julianmacfarlane/p/russia-stil...

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.

There was an artist in residency on a cargo ship that sounded really, interesting. It became even more interesting after the parent company went bankrupt: https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-one-artist-ended-up-stra...

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.

You can't just sell a whole tanker of oil without proving it's yours. Nobody (or almost nobody) want to risk doing such purchase.

There is always buyers or ways to utilize the cargo. There are many countries that would happily take in the oil for a sizeable discount.

Groups also when the host country wants a layer of deniability.

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!!

After the years of headaches - what happened to the boat? Rusting in a shed?

We had to write two certified letters to all the previous owners, then we either filed that reply or the returned unsigned certified mail after 45 days (for each previous owner) we were able finally file a title transfer application with the Department of Wildlife and the DMV, then we had to wait for two letters to clear the title with those organizations and then finally we applied for a new title from the DMV. It was like 3 years of my life. We finally sold it!

You could have given it away or fire sold it with a simple bill of sale and let the next guy do all the BS if they so chose.

Seems like enough of parties involved had attitudes that precluded that though.

This problem is one of the reasons Maritime unions worldwide have been significant and strong players in national labour relations.

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.

... 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.

And don't forget retroactive claw backs on any profits taken; otherwise they'd make sure the assets to be seized are of absolutely no value (and canonically, negative value: all the environmental disaster and other collateral damage is offloaded to the public)

Isn't that the whole purpose of "limited liability" corporations? So that the owners can abscond with the profits and leave the mess to the public?

Western Australian here confirming all resource extraction does this. Woodside and Adani are the most egregious that come to mind but they all do it.

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.

It often doesn’t. But it is possible to have effective regulatory oversight systems and taxation. Norway is the model.

It’s the ultimate rent seeking model, and like the old telecom & utility monopolies, they should be on a tight leash with moderate profits.

Where do you plan to get the resources if we aren't extracting them from somewhere?

>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.

For some industries it seems crazy not to nationalize

given perverse incentives derive directly from profit motive it seems crazy not to nationalize just about everything.

I highly doubt the best solution to this sort of problem is one size fits all.

Based on any evidence or just going with your gut on this one?

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.

This is likely the closest thing to viable, some sort of mineral extraction permanent life insurance policy to protect the surrounding area and workers would go a long way toward safeguarding the wealth created from being swallowed in shareholder greed.

My own country was perfectly fine sacrificing a region for monetary gain. In fact most countries have nationalized their oil and gas fields.

Except for the global south. That's how you get couped by the US (see Brazil 1964, Bolivia 1971, Iran 1953, Syria 1949, Iraq 1963, Indonesia 1965, Venezuela 2002, etc)

woops, this was meant to be a reply to forgetfreeman's comment

Yeah, coal companies got out of a bunch of medical expenses they owed miners in the U.S. by bankrupting their subsidies.

Anyone wants to start an insurance startup for bringing stranded people home / to wherever they want with me?

(any human trafficking is purely conincidental and not supported by us)

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.

And what is the positive effect here? This gives rise to escalation, harms the environment, and doesn't really help end the war.

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?

Striking at the economy of the aggressor definitely helps end the war

How can Russia escalate, short of nukes or expanding the war either of Which would be suicide

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...

sounds like good news for us seasteaders

If we actually taxed fossil fuel producers what it took to offset the negative externalities offloaded to the public, we'd be 100% on renewables long ago.

And perhaps with an economic collapse to rival the climate outcomes we're afraid of nevermind noncompliance by economies that couldn't begin to survive with such an expensive early switch followed by... what recourse? War?

Wouldn't everything be great if everyone did the super hard thing in the past so all of our problems would be solved and we'd live in peace and perfect harmony! /s

> if everyone did the super hard thing in the past

I'd settle for the present - or the near future - or at all, ever, really, in place of the "let's just drive this bus off the cliff at full speed and hope our children learn to fly in midair" policy we've been implicitly choosing.

Solar is the cheapest source of electricity now and we've got grid scale batteries that are economical. The solution is here.

Climate change is too. It's time to stop worrying and hoping drastic prevention plans are going to work because it's already happened. The world is going to change and people are going to have to change with it (and move, mostly).

I am well aware. I'm not worried about it anymore; I'm heartbroken, and I'm furious.

Does that help anyone?

I'm not sure we should just ignore that the way we are handing this is to put all the costs onto the poor and powerless, while letting the rich and powerful become ever richer and more powerful. Turning that upside down would absolutely help a lot of people. More people should be furious about this.

Therefore we should do nothing! Why should I do anything if the folks before and around me didn't already do everything? Moreover, why work on a climate catastrophe for everyone if there's even a chance of negative economic impact for the investor class?

You don't have to do anything. You're losing money if you don't move to solar. You don't have to do anything out of any kind of altruistic future world saving hopes and dreams.

You can just do it because you're cheap and greedy.

If you want to stand by and pollute the world with fossil carbon emissions... well you're paying extra for the privilege, and why?

> nevermind noncompliance by economies that couldn't begin to survive with such an expensive early switch followed by... what recourse?

Tariffs.

Most of the externalities are created when you burn the fossil fuels, or someone does so on your behalf, not when Exxon obtains and sells it to you. Why shouldn’t you be the one to pay the tax?

It's easier to tax a single company (Exxon) than millions of people. Exxon will pass the cost on to consumers anyway so it amounts to the same thing.

Every developed country already has point of sale gas taxes and it works fine. Just raise the number.

Gas isn't the only petroleum product.

Before I read, I’m going to guess some combination of shady business bullshit and global instability.

reads

Yup.

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