Ships are getting older and safety is suffering

The global shipping fleet is getting older, but it is also getting more dangerous. As freight rates surged in a tonne-miles driven market, many shipowners delayed scrapping older vessels, which put seafarers, cargo and the environment at greater risk. The industry must now act decisively to improve safety standards amid an ageing fleet, argues the class society DNV who have used Lloyd’s List Intelligence casualty data to analyse the trends. Lloyd’s List editor-in-chief Richard Meade sat down with Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen, CEO of DNV Maritime, on the sidelines of the Nor-Shipping event being held in Oslo this week to discuss what this means and what can be done about it