Not only is the economic cost inconsequential to companies, so is it to some governments. One hot spot with a large concentration of pirates is Southeast Asia. To combat the problem, Thailand set up an anti-piracy unit eleven years ago. Although they spent over $13 million dollars, they haven't caught a single pirate. They may have deterred pirates from attacking ships, but the expense involved may not seem economically feasible to governments when compared to the cost of absorbing the losses.
If the problem of piracy continues to grow-and there are indications that it will-higher insurance premiums may cause companies to take action. Shippers may also discover that they can't find coverage if they continue to visit ports where pirates abound. This may have dire consequences for poorer countries because goods will travel farther to reach their destinations and prices for those goods will increase accordingly. Two factors that are more likely to force industries and countries to suppress piracy are the environmental cost and the human cost.
When pirates attacked the Baltimar Zephyr in 1992, they killed the ship's master and first officer and threw three seamen overboard. The pirates absconded with several hundred dollars, leaving the moving ship's bridge unattended for ninety minutes until the crew freed themselves. What if pirates attacked an oil tanker at night and incapacitated the crew while the ship traveled the Phillip Channel between Indonesia and Singapore, one of the busiest and narrowest of the world's waterways? If the tanker went aground or collided with another ship, the resultant oil spill "would be disastrous. Apart from the pollution concerns, there is every possibility that the seaway would have to be closed to shipping and the fishing in the area would be ruined for many years." (Captain Jayant Abhyankar, Deputy Director of ICC International Maritime Bureau, An Overview of Piracy Problems, 1999)
