30 Years Ago

A LOOK BACK AT OCTOBER 1989

There was a time when the LNG industry was small; thirty years ago there were fewer than 100 LNG carriers in the entire world fleet, and massive barriers to entry kept it tight. It’s very different nowadays, with the trade in LNG having expanded immensely. But back in October 1989 HCB was one of the very few publications with any particular interest or expertise in the sector, and our issue led with news of the inauguration of the massive North West Shelf project in Australia and an overview of world LNG trade and ships on order.

In that issue we also looked at the bulk liquid chemicals trades, with an overview of the chemical tanker market and an article on the opening of Stolt Tankers & Terminals’ new storage and distribution hub in Houston. In those days, we felt it necessary to put air-quotes around ‘hub’ as it was such a new-fangled term, as well as around ‘owner’s berth’ – Stolt-Nielsen was looking to improve its own tanker efficiencies in one of the world’s major bulk liquids ports by having its own terminal with berths reserved for its own ships.

One innovation that we reported on in October 1989 did not come off: this was a new design for a ‘bottle tanker’ for the transport of liquid chemicals on shortsea and river trades in Europe.

But perhaps the item in the October 1989 issue that has most resonance today was the comment piece by editor Mike Corkhill, in which he highlighted the growing practice of outsourcing waste treatment and the increasing volume of maritime trade in hazardous wastes. His comments were sparked in part by militant action by Greenpeace against shipments of PCB-contaminated waste from Canada to the UK.

He pointed out that the UK was equipped with specialist waste treatment units capable of handling such material, in contrast to the position in Quebec, and that the material is not particularly hazardous in transport. Therefore, such trade should be supported, not attacked.

On the other hand, he also made the following point: “We must also strive to ensure that the invidious practice of dumping hazardous wastes in developing countries, which has sprung up in recent years, is halted forthwith and that efforts to minimise the generation of such materials at sources are given a high priority.”

Spool forward thirty years and public concern has swung round from obviously hazardous pollutants to the apparently more benign issue of waste plastics. Recent publicity highlighting the dangers that plastics pollution presents to the world’s oceans – and to humans and all other animals on the plant – has coincided with China’s decision to ban the import of plastics and other wastes, a ban that has been mirrored by other Asian nations. Those bans have forced consumers and industrial producers and users in the developed world to look more closely at how they can prevent such waste from being generated at all.

And that will provide a big challenge to the European petrochemical industry in the years to come. Indeed, so great is that challenge that the European Petrochemical Association (EPCA) has put sustainability in general and plastics pollution in particular high on its agenda in the conference sessions at its Annual Meeting this month.