SHIPBREAKING
Marine Recycling Corp. has contracts to break up two former navy vessels
HMCS Athabaskan should keep facility busy to end of 2018.
A shipbreaking company executive says its latest contract to demolish the former HMCS Athabaskan will keep its facility in the Sydport Industrial Park busy to the end of the year.
Reached while on holidays in the Dominican Republic, Marine Recycling Corp. founder and director of business development, Wayne Elliott, said it’s expected there will be enough work in dismantling and breaking ships for years to come.
“We really believe that being on the coast there is long-term work,” Elliott said Thursday, noting it was best to have a base on the Atlantic coast rather than towing vessels to the company’s headquarters in Port Colbourne, Ont. on Lake Erie.
In August, the company was awarded a $12.6-million federal tender to dismantle the auxiliary oiler replacement ship, the former HMCS Preserver, and a former research vessel called CFAV Quest.
It was announced last week it would also take on a $5.7-million federal contract to break up the former HMCS Athabaskan, also at its dock at the Sydport Industrial Park.
The dismantling of the Iroquois-class destroyer, which is currently docked at Canadian Forces Base Halifax, is expected to be completed by July 2019.
However, Elliott said the work to completely break up all three vessels would likely conclude by the end of this year.
The breaking up of the Quest will begin in March while the Preserver has had all contaminants removed from the vessel and the breaking up will become noticeable by April, he said.
“There will be further work that needs to be done on the boilers, for example, just to ensure there isn’t any (asbestos) residue. And of course, if there is, it will be treated as asbestos containing material and handled and disposed of properly.”
Elliott said approximately 7,000 to 8,000 kilograms in polychlorinated biphenyls, commonly called PCBs, were removed from the 47-year-old Protecteur-class auxiliary vessel.
“The PCBs on the warships was, for the most part, in some of the electrical wiring and on some coverings like fibre glass mesh over possibly insulation and on internal parts of the hull,” he said.
“Warships of that vintage will always have some PCB contamination, and that’s long since been removed from both vessels, the Quest and Preserver, and shipped to the treatment facility.”
The toxic waste is transported to the Swan Hills Treatment Centre in Alberta and to another facility in Ontario.
There are currently 27 fulltime employees working on the two vessels, and that number is expected to reach 35 to 40 employees as work begins on the Athabaskan sometime in April.
Over the next 10 years it’s expected a number of navy vessels and government-owned ferries will be decommissioned and dismantled for scrap.
The $1.5-billion National Oceans Protection Plan launched by the federal government in November 2016, as well as the abandoned boats program, will provide the company opportunities to safely tow and break up vessels that have outlived their lifespan or have become hazardous to waterways.
“There are ferries coming out of service on both coasts. We’re really interested in metal-hulled vessels and vessels for the most part that couldn’t be done with a boom truck and a flatbed float. I think there will be a lot of work for those type of operators, tow truck people, boom truck, they just have to do the environmental part of it correctly,” said Elliott.
“We’re looking at Sydport, we hope, as a permanent facility.”
Marine Recycling Corp. does business with most steelmakers in Canada and has relationships with a few in the U.S. It’s expected some of the material from these broken up vessels will end up in other parts of the country.
Although Elliott said shipping over water is considerably less expensive than by truck or rail.
“I do think that the steel fraction — and it’s just because of freight rates to get to a North American steel plant — that would justify sending this clean, processed steel mostly (to) Turkey.”
He said the sale of the steel has yet to be finalized.
“There are ferries coming out of service on both coasts. We’re really interested in metal-hulled vessels and vessels for the most part that couldn’t be done with a boom truck and a flatbed float.”
Marine Recycling Corp. founder and director of business development, Wayne Elliott