Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to collaborate with Chengxi Shipyard (Xinrong) of China in retrofitting work of ballast water treatment systems
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and Chengxi Shipyard (Xinrong) Co., Ltd. in China have agreed to collaborate in the ship repair business through installation of ballast water treatment systems (BWTS), said in the company's press release. The two companies signed the agreement on April 26. For some time MHI has been seeking to expand its engineering business in China, while the Chinese shipyard has sought to strengthen its business by introducing advanced technologies in the field. The aims of the two companies have thus meshed in reaching the collaboration agreement. By combining MHI's advanced technologies accumulated from its abundant experience in ship conversion work, including BWTS installation, and Chengxi Shipyard (Xinrong)'s ability to respond to ship conversion needs and its cost competitiveness, the two companies look to establish an advantageous position in the global market in this field.
Based on the new agreement, the two companies will closely collaborate throughout the BWTS retrofitting process: from BWTS marketing, system selection and design to actual installation work with customer needs. MHI is to provide the drawings necessary for undertaking retrofitting work of BWTS. It will also dispatch supervisors to the site in China when necessary and conduct training in Japan for engineers of the Chinese shipyard at its Yokohama Dockyard & Machinery Works, where MHI performs ship retrofitting, maintenance and repair work. The talks toward collaboration were conducted with the cooperative assistance of Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
Going forward, when an order is received calling for retrofitting of BWTS on multiple ships of the same type, engineers from Chengxi Shipyard (Xinrong) will participate in work on the first ship at MHI's Yokohama plant, in order to acquire the necessary know-how. Subsequent work on the other ships will then be undertaken primarily at the Chinese shipyard. This arrangement will enable work to be performed on more ships in a short period at lower cost.
Chengxi Shipyard Co., Ltd is a subsidiary company of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), one of China's two largest state-owned shipbuilding-related groups. Its main office and plant are located in Jiangyin and Jingjiang, Jiangsu Province, along the Yangtze River.
Full implementation of a new convention on ballast water management (BWM) is slated to begin in 2017, at which time both new and existing ships will be required to install a system to purify ballast water prior to its discharge from the ship. Ballast water consists of seawater taken into and discharged from dedicated water tanks to provide stability and adjust a ship's trim as desired. While many ships are expected to be subject to the new regulations, some shipbuilders have announced intent to concentrate exclusively on the construction of new ships and will no longer handle either ship modification or BWTS installations on existing ships, even those they built earlier. Against this backdrop, preparation for the convention's implementation has become a major issue in both the shipbuilding and shipping industries.
MHI has already taken the lead in the business of BWTS installation. In April 2011 the company became the first Japanese shipbuilder to establish a dedicated unit to handle such operations, and in January this year the company's basic design of an easy-to-install freight container-enclosed BWTS - jointly developed with Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL) - received concept approval from Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK). In addition, MHI has been aggressively promoting engineering business as a long-term expansion strategy for its shipbuilding and ocean development segment, and also accelerating provision of its technologies to other shipbuilding companies both in Japan and abroad.