Members of the International Salvage Union provided 162 services to vessels carrying 2.4 million tonnes of potentially polluting cargo and fuel during operations in 2024.

It again demonstrates the vital role of professional salvors in protecting the marine environment. The data come from the ISU’s Annual Pollution Prevention Survey for operations in 2024.

President of the ISU, John Witte, said: “Sustaining a viable professional salvage industry ready to respond to all kinds of incidents around the world is essential and that is recognised by insurers and owners but it needs to be properly funded. This survey clearly demonstrates that the threat is real and the interventions of our members are a vital contribution to environmental protection and to the protection of our clients’ reputations.”

There were 162 services in 2024 compared with 173 the previous year and that is in line with the downward trend of the ISU general industry statistics. But at the same time the potential impact of cases is getting larger, particularly in containership cases and also because of the greatly increased amount of bunkers carried by the largest ships.

Each year there can be significant variations in the quantities of pollutants in each category. That is largely due to the major impact on the numbers of, for example, cases involving large crude carriers. The number of containers in 2024 is notably higher than last year and, after bulk cargo, remains the most significant category with ISU members providing services to vessels carrying 41,000 TEU amounting to some 615,000 tonnes of cargo. It compares with 400,000 tonnes of crude oil. It is well established that containers carrying a great variety of harmful and dangerous goods including plastic pellets (nurdles) represent one of the biggest threats to the marine environment.

Cargoes of refined oil products increased again in 2024 but chemical cargoes dropped significantly. Dirty and hazardous bulk cargoes in 2024 were up at 923,000 tonnes. A number of the services in the survey did not record the quantity of bunkers or the cargo type meaning the reported numbers likely represent a more modest total than the reality.

2024 ISU Pollution Prevention Survey Results (tonnes)

The 162 services in 2024 included 34 wreck removal/marine services contracts; 15 Lloyd’s Open Forms; 24 towage contracts; 8 Japanese Forms; 10 Lump Sum, 6 Day Rate contracts; 42 other contracts (including commercial terms and common law salvage) and 26 Turkish Forms.

ISU is transparent in noting that not all the potential pollutants were at immediate risk of going into the sea. Some cases will have had limited danger, but others will have carried a real risk of causing substantial environmental damage.

John Witte added: “In an era of “zero tolerance” of any pollution, even the smaller cases represent a significant concern. And many of the individual cases recorded could have caused an environmental disaster if our members had not been available to intervene.

The survey was first conducted by ISU in 1994 and the methodology was updated in 2014 to include a wider range of potential pollutants including containers and hazardous and dirty bulk cargoes. In the period 1994 to end-2024, ISU members have provided services to casualty vessels carrying 45,794,145 tonnes of potential pollutants, an average of 1.5 million tonnes per year.