RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In the last 30 years, some 50 vessels, mostly fishing vessels, have been abandoned and accumulated in Montevideo‘s bay, causing environmental impact, visual pollution, and even hindering navigation, reported El País.
In 2019, the National Ports Administration (ANP) awarded Movilex the public tender created to clean up the “ship graveyard” area for the sum of US$150,000 per vessel to be removed.
Subsequently, the company awarded Fewell, a member of the Christophersen Group, the contract for the scrapping of 22 sunken ships, explained the director of the National Ports Administration (ANP), Juan Curbelo (National Party), who explained that “Movilex has already scrapped four ships. Now Fewell is starting up. We are beginning to solve an endemic problem of the port of Montevideo that is 20 to 30 years old”.
The vessels sunk in Montevideo Bay will be refloated by Fewell and towed to the ANP port of Puntas de Sayago. There, Fewell installed a 120-ton crane, which on Monday, January 1 and Wednesday, January 3, towed two ships to be scrapped.
At the moment, there are half a hundred abandoned ships in the port of Montevideo. “Of that number of vessels left by their owners, 40 are already owned by the State. There are another 12 or 15 vessels that still belong to private owners,” said Curbelo.
He added that “in this first stage, Fewell will have to refloat and transfer another 16 vessels to the port of Puntas de Sayago. At an average of 400 tons per vessel, some 1,600 tons of steel will be removed from the port. In a second stage, another 20 ships will be scrapped.