Managing Director of Volga Shipping Alexander Shishkin: "We are interested in ordering newbuildings at Russian shipyards”

Current plans of Volga Shipping Company are associated with upgrading its fleet. On May 20, Volga Shipping commissioned the Captain Ruzmankin, a modern day cargo carrier of Project RSD44. The Company expects the delivery of three more vessels of the series, now being outfitted and undergoing sea trials. The Volga Shipping’s Managing Director Alexander Shishkin told in a recent interview with the PortNews correspondent about current development and plans of the company.

- Mr. Shishkin, just a few days ago the Russian government introduced to the State Duma a bill on the support of shipping and shipbuilding. What do you expect from this? How the new law could change the situation with the construction of a new fleet and the future of Russian-flagged ships?

- We believe, the bill properly reflects the state policy on development of domestic industry. This document was developed with the active participation of businesses, in particular, UCL Holding, which our Company is part of. If the bill is adopted, then the shipping companies of our country will have a real interest to update their river fleet on the Russian shipyards. And the shipbuilders, in turn, will receive certain preferences, including tax, which will allow them to invest in the modernization of shipyards, reduce costs and increase productivity.

In other words, the industry will be progressing, its products will demanded on the market. And hopefully, the bill will be approved.

By the way, the project developers did not "re-invent the wheel", but borrowed the well-proven experience of countries that are now world leaders in shipbuilding: China, Japan and South Korea. Their experience shows that without the active participation of the state the sector will not revive itself. For example, back in the 70s the shipbuilding industry in South Korea not only was entirely exempt from taxation, but also received government grants and subsidies. As a result, over ten years it had become a strong high-tech industry, which began pressing other building nations on the world market.

And in Europe, which refused to support their shipbuilders you can’t find today competitive serial production of ships. And the only thing they can do is to perform unique and expensive orders for the construction of ocean-going cruise ships or container ships. All orders for serial vessels (in the first place, bulk carriers and tankers) have gone to Asia.

- What is the current state of your company's fleet? How it will change after construction new vessels and modernization in the next few years?

- It is projected that this year all the fleet Volga Shipping operates now will be busy, largely cargo ships. During the past navigation our traffic volume totaled 5,5 million tons of different cargoes, 940,000 tons more than in 2009. According to provisional results of this navigation the trend will persist.
There are a number of sectors where it would be quite difficult to replace the river fleet. The cargoes delivered by rivers for the country’s northern regions make up some 80% of all shipped volume. Transportation by inland waterways in the central part of Russia accounts for a quarter of all crude oil shipments, as well as construction materials, grain and other goods. So we have a lot of job to do.

If we talk about the fleet structure, Volga Shipping owns and operates self-propelled vessels (mainly of deadweight of 5,000 tons) tugboats of capacity of 1200-2400hp, non-self-propelled ships of 4,500dwt and passenger ships eache for accommodation of 300.

Now we are upgrading cargo ships. Their technical condition meets the requirements of regulatory authorities, but the age of some ships is more than 35 years. We will replace them with new-generation vessels. We’ve placed an order for 10 Project RSD44 ships at Oka Shipyard that will replace the outdated ones. Annually, we plan to build 5 or 7 new MVs at the shipyard.

- What is the amount of your investment in the first series of bulk carriers?

- We have invested in the project RUB 4,7 billion. We think that our fleet of tugs and self-propelled vessels is still in good condition (the average age is 24-27 years) avarage going to build new ones as their a good technical condition (an average age is 24-27 years) and we are not planning to build new ships in the coming years.

It’s the same with our passenger vessels. Volga Shipping Co. operates comfortable motor ships of different projects and our company is carrying out permanent repair and renovation of these ships. So, this year we have completed the modernization of the passenger ship "Mstislav Rostropovich". We converted the Project 92-016 ship into a modern vessel with comfort and service like a 4-star hotel. We haven’t had such class ships, and if her operation turns out to be successful we will continue the renovation of other vessels.