International Shipping:
Unregulated Greed

Sep 30, 2024

In Baltimore, Maryland this past March, six workers on the Francis Scott Key bridge died when a ship called the Dali hit the bridge they were paving. The bridge collapsed. The Dali is owned by one shipping company, Grace Ocean Private Limited, but managed by the third largest fleet manager in the world, Synergy Marine.

The U.S. federal government and the Maryland state government have launched investigations and lawsuits. But these will take years to resolve—if and when any money is paid, whether to the families of the dead men or the government entities that have to clean up the Chesapeake Bay near Baltimore or to rebuild the bridge.

Until accidents happen, few of us hear anything about world shipping. We only know that supposed “supply chain problems” stop products we have bought from arriving at our door. But we know nothing of this virtually unregulated industry. Regulators cannot even keep track of who owns ships, let alone how they can prevent annual deaths and injuries among crews, nor how many containers go overboard. Baltimore was not even the worst U.S. disaster for bridges falling down, killing people in cars going over them, when a big ship hits.

Synergy is a Singapore-based shipping manager with a fleet of over 600 ships in a country that makes business “easy.” That means more than 100,000 ships call in Singapore every year. Taxes are low and bureaucracy is super-fast compared to elsewhere. Taxes and regulations don’t bother thousands of companies that locate their headquarters in this tiny country between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

To give a few examples reported about just one ship Synergy managed, the Dali had non-stop vibrations, never fixed, so that bolts and cables constantly came loose or cracked. It was not using proper fuel pumps, nor did its back-up electric transformer work. The Dali lost power—twice—on the day of the Baltimore disaster.

Richer countries may inspect such ships in their ports, calling attention to defects or problems the crews have. Certainly there are dozens of deaths and injuries every year. But no country nor institution, not even the main marine insurer in the world, Lloyd’s of London, knows where ships are, what happens on them, or even who owns them. In poor countries, sailors report that whiskey and cigarettes are carried to bribe port officials.

Thanks to countries turning a blind eye, the shipping industry also pours thousands of tons of sewage over its sides on every ship every day in every ocean around the world. A recent USA Today investigation found ship captains were expected to cut corners to save money, to emphasize speed over safety, and to work their tiny crews very hard. Twenty-one men managed the Dali 24 hours per day, seven days a week, while it carried 4,700 containers into Baltimore’s port.

More such disasters are ready to happen every day around the world, thanks to the greed of shipping company owners and managers.