News
Alexander Solovyev about Arctic, rivers and fishermen Interview for the newspaper Delovoy Peterburg
Recently, the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) again started talking about the idea of a so called distributed shipyard. Is it possible to build parts of the same vessel in parallel at several shipyards?
- The concept of a distributed shipyard is a sound idea. It was proved long ago that due to division of labor it is possible to achieve better efficiency. Now the main issue for the shipbuilders is not the concept itself, but its implementation mechanisms.
The main condition for functioning of this system is unification of the shipyards in terms of pricing and final product cost. For instance, let’s consider hypothetically cooperation between Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard from Nizhny Novgorod, Vyborg Shipyard and Severnaya Verf. Let's assume they will build dry cargo ships. So, cost of such a vessel at Krasnoye Sormovo will be deemed $14-15 million, at Vyborg Shipyard, which is specialized in construction of ice-class vessels - $18-20 million, and at Severnaya Verf, which is aimed entirely at the creation of warships - all $25 million.
Another indispensable condition — serial production. Starting up a distributed shipyard when building two or three vessels does not make any sense, because, in fact, all of them will be prototypes. To be a series they shall be 10, 20, 30 units. Presently the newbuildings at the shipyards of northwest Russia are craftwork and have nothing to do with serial production.
In which shipbuilding sector do you think Russia is leading today?
- It’s construction of nuclear and ice-class vessels. But this situation may change in a short time. At present China is already completing construction of its floating nuclear ,power plant and going to build its domestic nuclear icebreaker.
To maintain the leading position, we need orders, and orders can be generated by dynamic development of the Arctic shelf. Until now it is rather low-level.
Another driver of shipbuilding industry growth - river waterways. Furthermore, within the program of investment quotas, fishermen started to build vessels in Russia.
The state of the fishing fleet is really poor. According to the experts, the need of the fleet is up to 1.5 thousand vessels. But the companies will order in Russia only those vessels, for which construction they will be motivated by the state by means of incentives or bans because today it is minimum 10-15% more expensive to build vessels in Russia than, for example, in Turkey, China or Spain.
What part of the fleet will be renewed within the investment quota program?
- Now the entire newbuilding market in the framework of the program is approximately 50 ships all over Russia. It is out of 1.5 thousand vessels which are needed. 20% of these 50 have been taken by Vyborg Shipyard, the others - by Severnaya Verf, Yantar and Pella. If the program is not expanded, it will stop here.
Creation of a vessel is a multistage process. What link, in your opinion, is today the weakest in Russian shipbuilding industry?
- We experience great difficulties while working with the engineering companies. For the latest 6 years we have tried almost all the major design bureaus in the civil sector of Russian shipbuilding: Petrobalt, Vympel, Baltsudoproekt, Lazurit, Hotcha Marine Design, FORSS. I cannot say that we were completely satisfied with any of them. There are design companies which are too far on the downside. On the upside, I can mention DB Vimpel, - in my opinion, now it is the most successful designer in the civil sector in Russia.
What is the reason for the problems of domestic design bureaus today?
- Personnel. Due to natural reasons, the staff has been renewed. Now the backbone is those who were formed as engineers in the 1990s.
First problem of the current generation of designers is that they are few. In the 1990s, all school graduates chose to be lawyers and economists.
Second problem is that they were formed as specialists in the years when the shipbuilding industry suffered deep stagnation. There was nothing to take guidance from, no one built ships, and engineers saw their colleagues engaged in anything but not design, while their foregoers had seen how their ideas were embodied in numerous concrete vessels and ships, they had participated in real projects.
In practice these problems are leading to a huge number of errors committed by the designers. Inaccuracies emerge already in steel – during the construction process of a vessel. The yards have to cut away and redo the structures and dispose of the old sections as scrap. The result is longer construction time and higher cost.
How in general have the sanctions affected the work of Vyborg Shipyard?
- Delivery time of imported components has increased, averagely, by one month-permits, licenses, approvals processing period became longer in the country of origin.
As to import substitution, for instance, some time ago Vyborg machine building plant started production of cable ladders and trays for inboard installation. If earlier on many vessels this product was supplied by a Danish company, now all the needs are covered by the Russian manufacturers. However, such examples are few and they are not related to high-tech products. In my opinion, localization of production in Russia is more promising. There are some positive examples: the Spanish manufacturer Azcue Pumps, which products are installed almost on all our vessels, has recently started production near St. Petersburg.
What is the share of imported equipment now on the vessels constructed at Vyborg Shipyard?
- On the fishing vessels about 90% of equipment is imported, on the icebreakers — around 60-75%. Such situation has developed not because Russia does not produce anything, but because domestic products are more expensive or, in the opinion of the customers, less reliable.