USC still committed to traditions
Despite the changes in United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) top management, and after the St. Petersburg authorities has dropped the Novo-Admiralteysky Bridge project, the Corporation still nourishes its plans to relocate the Admiralty Shipyards facilities to the Kotlin Island and to build new shipyards in the Far East. However, all of these projects will likely undergo some changes.
New Novoadmiralteyskaya
Despite the official decision to abandon plans for the construction of the Novo-Admiralteysky (New-Admiralty) Bridge in St. Petersburg, the management of JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation is not going to drop the project of relocation of Admiralty Shipyards facilities currently based downtown to the Kotlin island (Kronstadt), where the Corp. plans to construct New-Admiralty Shipyard (Novoadmiralteyskaya Verf). The Corporation’s President Andrei Dyachkov told PortNews that the new shipyard on the island is necessary because it is not possible any more to develop “surface shipbuilding on old yards." As we have previously reported, the future Kotlin-based shipyard will specialize mostly in construction of civilian ships designed to operate in harsh conditions of the Arctic at offshore fields. The project is expected to be implemented with the participation of the South Korean STX Corporation.
Yet, the cancellation of construction of the Novo-Admiralteysky Bridge across the Neva River has made the issue less urgent, and will most likely change the configuration of the project. Accordingly, this will entail the priorities change and the scheme of the project implementation. The Corp. said it would prepare its proposals and submit to the St. Petersburg Administration by the end of 2012. Mr. Dyachkov explained that the authorities and the USC management have agreed not to force the relocation of existing facilities in order to safely complete the execution of current contracts with Russian and foreign customers. In particular, the Corp.’s yards are engaged in building two series of submarines for the Russian Defense Ministry. The third serial submarine - "Stary Oskol" was laid down on August 17, 2012.
Will the dreams ever come true?
As to another St. Petersburg-based shipbuilding asset of USC - Baltic Shipyard, it has won recently a tender for contract for a new generation icebreaker which will feature double-draft design, and besides, the company is now solving the issues related to the terms of the Floating Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) contract with RosEnergoAtom. "We are negotiating with Rosenergoatom and I wouldn’t say that the talks are easy, but we have almost agreed on the technical aspects of the contract. There are only two positions still unresolved, which, I believe, will be settled within two weeks,” USC president said.
As for other major investment projects of USC, namely, the construction of new shipyards "Vostok Raffles" (a joint project with Yantai Raffles) and "Star DSME» (a JV with South Korean Daewoo Shipbuilding & Maritime Engineering), the Corporation is developing a program of their construction. The previously developed program will be "slightly transformed and will have several phases." Dyachkov explained that the development strategy of the Far Eastern assets will first be considered by the Corporation’s Board of Directors and then agreed with the relevant ministries and submitted for consideration to the Russian government in mid-September.
However, the current macroeconomic situation is not favorable for USC to entice foreign partners to participate in ambitious shipbuilding projects in Russia. The fact is that the global shipbuilding market is experiencing a crisis of overproduction and the world's largest shipbuilding corporations are themselves hunting for newbuilding orders.
Vitaly Chernov.