Ghost fleet ship attracts $1.15 million bid

The U.S. Maritime Administration said a ship from the Beaumont Reserve Fleet in Texas sold for scrap brought more than $1 million.

MarAd said it was the first time under the program that a ship has brought such a price.

International Shipbreaking Ltd., in Brownsville, Texas, will pay $1.15 million for the ship Adonis, and $173,297 for an additional three ships: the Cape Catawba, Cape Canaveral and Buyer.

These sales stand in contrast to most ship disposal contracts in recent years, which have involved the federal government paying to have its obsolete ships recycled, MarAd said. High worldwide prices for scrap steel have recently made such ships more valuable to recyclers, who sell the steel and other materials recovered from the ships.

Connaughton  

Transactions such as these benefit the taxpayers, and help us dispose of these vessels faster than ever before, said Maritime Administrator Sean T. Connaughton. Each time the federal government moves an obsolete ship out of storage, we make another important contribution toward maintaining local ecosystems.

The Adonis is a tanker built by A.G. Wesser Seeback of Bremerhaven, Germany in 1966.

The other three ships are breakbulk vessels. Buyer, also in Beaumont, was built by National Steel in San Diego in 1960.

The Cape Catawba and Cape Canaveral are located at the James River Reserve Fleet site in Virginia. The Cape Catawba was built at the Todd Shipyard in Los Angeles in 1961. The Cape Canaveral was built at the Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana in 1963. When these two ships depart the James River site for recycling, they will be the 70th and 71st vessel to do so since January 2001.

In addition to Beaumont and James River, MarAd has a reserve or ghost fleet in Benicia, Calif. When ships become obsolete, MarAd arranges for their disposal in an environmentally sensitive manner. 

Source: American Shipper