An Australian cargo ship scrapped for steel in Bangladesh may have intentionally evaded an international hazardous waste treaty and European law, a Dateline investigation can reveal.
A Panama flag, a Liberian shell company, and the world's largest "cash buyer" were all part of the mysterious trail of the ship's final voyage.
According to the industry watchdog, NGO Shipbreaking Platform (NSP), which campaigns to clean up the industry, the Searoad Tamar case is not isolated, but rather business as usual for the international maritime industry.
This is how nearly all the world's ocean-going vessels are scrapped, its website says.
Most of the world's ships die on just two beaches: one each in India and Bangladesh.
There, beached ships often containing hazardous waste are cut apart by poor workers, usually without protective equipment, in what the International Labour Organisation declared one of the world's most dangerous jobs.
NSP warns that an international ship scrapping convention coming into legal force at the end of June will legitimise and legalise the industry's worst practices.
Bangladesh is the world’s largest ship breaker per steel tonnage. Source: SBS News / Colin Cosier
Australia's last homemade cargo ship
The Searoad Tamar was a roll-on, roll-off vehicle ferry that for years plied the Bass Straight between Devonport and Melbourne.
Its longtime owner-operator, SeaRoad, sold the ship in 2021 to a Greece-based shipping company for use in the Mediterranean, a company spokesperson said in a statement.
The Searoad Tamar left Melbourne for the last time in April 2021 but never arrived in Greece. Instead, three weeks later, and registered under a Panama flag, the ship was beached into the mud at Chittagong, Bangladesh's second largest city.
Dateline does not suggest that the Tasmanian company, SeaRoad, did anything wrong.
SeaRoad's head, Chas Kelly, said he was "devastated" to learn the ship had been scrapped.
Shipping records obscure the name of the new Greek owner, but Dateline has confirmed with three sources that the Athens-addressed Ainaftis Shipping Co. purchased the Searoad Tamar.
Ainaftis Shipping Co. did not reply to Dateline's emailed questions.
It would likely breach both EU laws and the Basel Convention on the movement of hazardous waste if the Greek company sold and sent the Searoad Tamar to a Bangladeshi scrapyard.
But official shipping records show that the vessel was broken at the Chittagong scrapyard, Asadi Steel Enterprise.
So, was a so-called cash buyer — a middleman ship scrapping merchant company involved?
Dateline approached the Asadi Steel Enterprise yard and was told by the general manager that it bought the Searoad Tamar from a company with an address in Liberia: Ship Recycling Investments LLC.
Scrapyard Asadi Steel Enterprise broke the Searoad Tamar in 2021. Source: SBS News / Colin Cosier
But the address also links it to a well-known cash buyer: Global Marketing Systems (GMS).
The Dubai-based company's website says GMS is "world's largest buyer of ships and offshore vessels for recycling".
GMS also did not respond to Dateline's questions.
NSP's website says that cash buyers and so-called “flags of convenience” are used to allow shipping companies to send ships for scrapping in places like Bangladesh and India while avoiding locals laws and the Basel Convention's restrictions.
This, NSP's analysts' say, is how most of the world's ships end up broken on beaches in Bangladesh and India, despite global attempts to control and prevent the practice.
And it's why the arrangements and trail of the Searoad Tamar from Melbourne to Chittagong are so difficult to investigate, because the cash buyer system inhibits scrutiny and obscures accountability.
