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Shipboard armed guards face shrinking market as pirate attacks decline
TROUBLED maritime security contractors are being forced out of business as placing shipboard armed guards becomes harder to do in the face of sharply declining Somali piracy.
Security team prices have slumped from US$40,000 per voyage to $18,000-$20,000, said Malta-based Maritime Asset Security Training (MAST) chief operations officer Gerry Northwood, OBE, a former Royal Navy commander.
Hundreds of security firms started in the last seven years as scores of ships were boarded and seamen kidnapped off Somalia, Reuters reports.
But pirate attacks have dropped from 237 in 2011 to just 10 in the first nine months of this year, the lowest since the current piracy period began in 2008, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
The decline has been helped by the use of armed guards, as well as deploying naval forces and other shipboard defensive measures such as barbed wire and fire hoses.
As the maritime security sector became more crowded, and piracy declined, the cost of armed guards nearly halved.
"Day rates for embarked teams are continuously being squeezed to rock bottom," said retired rear admiral Vasilis Politis, managing director of Greek armed guard company Marine Security International.
Security team prices have slumped from US$40,000 per voyage to $18,000-$20,000, said Malta-based Maritime Asset Security Training (MAST) chief operations officer Gerry Northwood, OBE, a former Royal Navy commander.
Hundreds of security firms started in the last seven years as scores of ships were boarded and seamen kidnapped off Somalia, Reuters reports.
But pirate attacks have dropped from 237 in 2011 to just 10 in the first nine months of this year, the lowest since the current piracy period began in 2008, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
The decline has been helped by the use of armed guards, as well as deploying naval forces and other shipboard defensive measures such as barbed wire and fire hoses.
As the maritime security sector became more crowded, and piracy declined, the cost of armed guards nearly halved.
"Day rates for embarked teams are continuously being squeezed to rock bottom," said retired rear admiral Vasilis Politis, managing director of Greek armed guard company Marine Security International.
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