Amidst turmoil in the global financial markets, the Brazilian government has pledged R$10bn ($4.5bn) of soft-funding to support the country’s resurgent shipbuilding sector.
The government’s chief of staff Dilma Rousseff said the funds would guarantee not only the construction of new oil platforms and the expansion of state-controlled energy giant Petrobras tanker fleet, but also provide the resources needed to renew the country’s ageing cabotage fleet.
Ms Rousseff was speaking at the christening of the P-51, the first oil platform to be built entirely in Brazil, using finance from the Brazilian development bank, BNDES.
She said that half of the R$10bn would be targeted at the construction of oil platforms required to develop newly discovered oil fields holding as much as 50bn barrels of oil.
“At this moment of tight credit, making 10 billion reais available is something strategic for this industry,” said Ms Rousseff.
Shipbuilding in Brazil has been a key industry supported by the government of former metalworker, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Ms Rousseff said: “The government is going to make R$10bn available via the Merchant Marine Fund so the shipbuilding industry can construct platforms, ships, fishing vessels and the cabotage fleet. We are not making empty promises.”
Facing some of the highest interest rates in the world, Brazilian shipowners have relied on the BNDES-managed Merchant Marine Fund (FMM) for soft financing when building vessels in domestic yards.
The 50-year old fund raises money through a tax on foreign ships calling in Brazilian ports generating resources of more than R$2bn a year.
Debora Teixeira, director of the FMM, estimates that the fund will be needed to build up to 311 ships by 2010. As well as financing vessels construction, resources at the fund are also used to invest in shipyard improvements.
In the last two years with Petrobras’ logistics and shipping subsidiary, Transpetro, placing orders for $2.6bn and issuing another tender for 23 new ships, doubts have emerged about the FMM’s ability to keep pace with its shipping plans.
In particular concern has mounted over the prospect of other projects being crowded out by Petrobras’ plans to build more than 230 supply vessels, drillships and shuttle tankers for its offshore expansion program.
Brazilian chemical, bulk and container shipping operators have struggled to find space in yards when faced with competition from the country’s biggest company.
Log-In, is one of a handful of cabotage specialists that has embarked on a R$625m newbuilding program. It received a second payment of R$7.4m from the FMM this month as part of a five-boxship order at the EISA shipyard in Rio de Janeiro.
The government’s chief of staff Dilma Rousseff said the funds would guarantee not only the construction of new oil platforms and the expansion of state-controlled energy giant Petrobras tanker fleet, but also provide the resources needed to renew the country’s ageing cabotage fleet.
Ms Rousseff was speaking at the christening of the P-51, the first oil platform to be built entirely in Brazil, using finance from the Brazilian development bank, BNDES.
She said that half of the R$10bn would be targeted at the construction of oil platforms required to develop newly discovered oil fields holding as much as 50bn barrels of oil.
“At this moment of tight credit, making 10 billion reais available is something strategic for this industry,” said Ms Rousseff.
Shipbuilding in Brazil has been a key industry supported by the government of former metalworker, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Ms Rousseff said: “The government is going to make R$10bn available via the Merchant Marine Fund so the shipbuilding industry can construct platforms, ships, fishing vessels and the cabotage fleet. We are not making empty promises.”
Facing some of the highest interest rates in the world, Brazilian shipowners have relied on the BNDES-managed Merchant Marine Fund (FMM) for soft financing when building vessels in domestic yards.
The 50-year old fund raises money through a tax on foreign ships calling in Brazilian ports generating resources of more than R$2bn a year.
Debora Teixeira, director of the FMM, estimates that the fund will be needed to build up to 311 ships by 2010. As well as financing vessels construction, resources at the fund are also used to invest in shipyard improvements.
In the last two years with Petrobras’ logistics and shipping subsidiary, Transpetro, placing orders for $2.6bn and issuing another tender for 23 new ships, doubts have emerged about the FMM’s ability to keep pace with its shipping plans.
In particular concern has mounted over the prospect of other projects being crowded out by Petrobras’ plans to build more than 230 supply vessels, drillships and shuttle tankers for its offshore expansion program.
Brazilian chemical, bulk and container shipping operators have struggled to find space in yards when faced with competition from the country’s biggest company.
Log-In, is one of a handful of cabotage specialists that has embarked on a R$625m newbuilding program. It received a second payment of R$7.4m from the FMM this month as part of a five-boxship order at the EISA shipyard in Rio de Janeiro.