USC hits the mark
Looking for ways to improve the competitiveness of domestic shipyards United Shipbuilding Corporation intends to take steps to ensure that Russia's place in the top ten of the largest shipbuilding powers not only due the total cost of ships that are under construction, but also due to the tonnage. Deputy Director of USC, Dmitry Mironenkov, within the framework of the forum "Maritime Industry of Russia" that took place in Moscow presented a strategy for the corporation development, involving "dot modernization" of shipbuilding assets.
According to Dmitry Mironenkova, in 2009 USC has made "considerable progress" on the capacity utilization - 52%, whereas in the previous 2 years shipyards belonging to the corporation were occupied by no more than 30%. In the future, USC intends to improve this index to about 70%.
"If we can get component parts of good quality and at competitive prices from our manufacturers, we can ensure price risks, all the shipbuilding powers undergo in time of crisis " - representative of the corporation outlined one of the tasks. Dmitry Mironenkov clarified, no matter how shipyard would reduce the price for ships construction, trying to be more attractive to the customers it would not allow to reduce the cost of equipment of the ship, if supplier of component parts is not interested.
Also, Deputy Director of the USC marked one of the ways to enhance the competitiveness of Russian plants, a program of "point upgrade". Dmitry Mironenkov stressed that the only shareholder of a corporation is the state and, according to him, it would not allow to "squander funds”, that is why all available resources will be used in the most reasonable way and only in the right direction. Dot modernization, according to the corporations representative, requires about 15-20 billion rubles.
The cost of ships construction is planned to be reduced by a single orders center, creating a competitive environment within the corporation itself. Such a center would be established on the basis of SUE "Sudoexport" after its corporatization. Deadline for implementation of this task was not fixed by USC. But is was mentioned, that with the same scheme it is planned to establish single procurement center, that would improve logistics and allow to increase the transparency of transactions involving the acquisition of components and technologies. In addition, Dmitry Mironenko reported, USC will arrange "sound" design bureau, which at the first phase will involve the world's leading designers, and then Russian designers will master the whole product development cycle by themselves.
USC also expects some fruitful results after cooperation agreement with the Holding company "Composite" has been signed in the framework of the Forum "Maritime Industry of Russia". As Dmitry Mironenko commented on this transaction, the use of composite materials of new generation will be in demand both in the military and civil shipbuilding. "I think that with such joint efforts we can achieve those objectives, which concern the localization of production, rather than depend on foreign suppliers and technologies", - he said.
The greatest expectations for a "significant breakthrough" the corporation still places on two shipyards in the Far East of Russia. Laying of one of the shipyards was carried out at the plant "Zvezda" in the Bolshoy Kamen in November 2009. Its construction required the participation of South Korean investors - the company Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME), which is one of the world's leading corporations in the industry. The future shipyard already has a number of customers, including such major companies as Rosneft JSC, Transneft JSC, Gazprom, Sovcomflot and others. Factories, which will build large vessels, according to Dmitry Mironenkov, allow Russia to move to the level of Russian shipbuilding industry, which eventually will take place in the top 10 of world powers.
Svetlana Enaki