International Shipbreaking Ltd. L.L.C. | Introduction
Introduction
P.O. Box 6048
Brownsville, Texas 78523-6048
U.S.A.
Telephone: 956-831-2299
Private Company
Incorporated: 1995
Sales: $40 million (2004 est.)
NAIC: 336611 Ship Building and Repairing
International Shipbreaking Ltd. L.L.C. (ISL) is a Brownsville, Texas, company that dismantles obsolete maritime vessels and equipment for recycling. Privately owned, ISL is the largest and most technically advanced of the handful of companies providing shipbreaking services. Its 43-acre yard is able to accommodate vessels as long as 1,000 feet and as wide as 140 feet, and can handle as many as nine vessels at one time. While the competition continues to rely on welding torches to carve out portions of a ship, ISL uses metal shears. It also uses an onboard smelter to melt aluminum, rather than haul the material away in unwieldy and dangerous pieces. Dangerous substances such as PCBs and asbestos are removed by the company's own trucks, unlike other shipbreakers that contract out the work. Taking apart a vessel is a painstaking process. After all dangerous toxins are removed by workers wearing biohazard suits, scores of cutters using torches and shears whittle down the superstructure, and the pieces are removed by cranes using large magnets. The resulting gutted hull, called the "canoe" in the business, is removed from the water, and carved up, and the scrap metal is sold all over the world to recycling mills. Over the years, the industry has come under fire for dangerous work conditions, which resulted in a number of worker deaths, and the reckless handling of hazardous materials. ISL is in the forefront of improving shipbreaking practices and improving the industry's image. Any diesel fuel recovered in vessels is properly recycled, freshly cleaned jumpsuits are issued to workers each day, and management makes sure that water supplemented with electrolytes is available to keep workers hydrated.