Japanese shipyard giant Tsuneishi is plowing ahead with a landmark shipbreaking facility in Southeast Asia.
Tsuneishi is building a ship recycling site on the island of Negros in the centre of the Philippines, not far away from its shipbuilding yard on the island of Cebu.
Japanese class society ClassNK has this week given Tsuneishi the green light to say the plans for the yard are compliant with the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009 (HKC).
This marks the first application by a recycling facility in Southeast Asia submitted to ClassNK for verification, as well as the first facility designed to comply with the HKC standard from its planning stage.
Tsuneshi also has a yard in China as well as its main shipbuilding yard in southern Japan. A sister firm, Kambara Kisen, is a sizeable shipowner with a mixed fleet of bulkers and boxships.