LESS than an hour by ferry from the endless bling-bling shopping malls of postmodern Singapore lies the somewhat grittier Indonesian city of Batam.

It is home to more than a million people, tens of thousands of them resident in what is known as “informal housing”, a euphemism for the countless tin shacks that proliferate on any parcel of land not being used otherwise.

Manufacturing jobs tend to pay about £260 ($350) a month, which doesn’t exactly buy you the good life, even by local standards. But many regard it as preferable to such alternatives as street hawking, domestic service or building labour.

Just how many are employed in shipyards is not known, but the tally will clearly be substantial. Even though Indonesia doesn’t rank among Asia’s big three shipbuilding nations, Batam is something of a hub for the sector.

It hosts three separate PaxOcean facilities, which focus on OSVs, as well as repair specialists ASL Marine Batam and Batamec, as well as several other players.

As we report, ASL was the scene of a recent fire on board floating storage tanker Federal II (IMO: 8818946), which killed 13 people and left a further 18 injured.

The incident took place nearly two weeks ago, but word has only emerged now, after ASL Marine filed details with the Singapore stock exchange.

This is the second fatal incident involving the same vessel at the same yard in just four months. An earlier blaze in June left four people dead.

The company said it was deeply saddened by the latest fatalities and injuries and added that it has ordered a comprehensive review of its safety management procedures.

Nobody puts the effort into keeping an official record of just how many people die in shipyards worldwide each year. But the indications are that it’s one of the more dangerous occupations in existence.

In August, one report suggested that even in industrially advanced South Korea, an average of one shipyard worker has died every day in the year to date.

In Türkiye, an OECD economy, the shipbuilding fatality rate is three times the average for all other industries put together.

None of this should be surprising. The activity of building ships requires those engaged in it to handle molten metal, heavy steel parts and large machinery, often at heights a long way above the ground.

Experts contend that many older yards refuse to invest in basic safety measures such as fall protection, simply to keep costs down, even as they urge ever tighter deadlines for newbuildings and repairs.

What has happened in Batam, which won’t get reported beyond the local media and specialist shipping publications, reminds us that shipbuilding will never be 100% safe. But there are probably things that could be done to make it safer.

David Osler
Law and marine insurance editor, Lloyd’s List

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