Page 43: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2015)

SHIPYARDS : FEATURE ing programs and, apart from that, due to the over- supply in drilling units as a consequence of the big amount of new builds coming to the market, most of companies have decided to retire their old units for scrap- ping instead of invest in long shipyard proach periods for life extension, postponing and ser- their SPS and new build deliveries and vice, skill warm/cold stacking the rigs without con- of our workers, tract with minimum capex in overhaul- reliability of our ing.

works program, and hon-

We, at Astican, perfectly understand orability of the approach and this situation and are supporting our cus- avoiding hidden surprises for our tomers by assisting them to reduce their customers. We think this is the only costs. way to assure a future in our business.

On top of that, we always meet the By market sector please discuss

Re- planned schedule of the projects, avoid- “what is hot” … “what is not” … lated to and why?

the above, ing delays to owners.

earlier this year ¦ Of fshore: We are detecting slight we have partnered Looking ahead to 2016, what sta- tistics do you monitor and how do decrease in the scope of repairs up with Rainmaker and you see your business shaping up?

for the offshore market as a conse-

Offshore Inland in Houston

The main one is the oil prices. We un- quence of the low oil prices.

in order to give a closer and bet- derstand that, once the prices recover, the ter service to the industry.

operators will start awarding contracts ¦ Reefer: Decrease through the years the skill of our personnel has been fully again so all drilling contractors will be- due to containerization of the car-

If you had to pick one or two major proved throughout the years prior to my gin a race to reshape their units and we gos.

areas, how would you best charac- times. The shipyard already had a repu- have to be ready to assist them and en- terize your “bread and butter” busi- tation in the market and a business struc- sure good delivery times and prices.

¦ Tankers: Increase in recent years ness?

ture well dimensioned and established to On this regard, we have recently signed of the repairs at ours of this type

We can say the range of services and allow ful? lling ? rst class customer´s de- capabilities is common but the market a cooperation agreement with HHI to of vessel as a result of the increase mands. It is our ? rst aim to keep the level we provide them can be considered as support them to accomplish their warran- of their activity in Western Africa of quality and reliability of the projects “Oil & Gas” and “Marine” Divisions. ty, commissioning and ? nishing works in

Region.

we deal with, as part of our success is No doubt about the common needs of the new build units coming from Far East based in the number of customers that repairs and upgrade projects in terms to any of the E&P areas in the Atlantic ¦ Military: Stable market that could repeatedly trust us for the works on their of basic characteristics of them: steel Ocean, Mediterranean or North Sea. This even increase due to the renewal ? eets. Nevertheless, facing the challenged renewals, surfaces treatments, piping good collaboration is already working of the Spanish ? eet assigned to the through one drillship project in July 2015

Canaries.

works, machinery, etc. but the approach times we are going through, our team may vary and so we have adapted our and we expect that it continues growing has established a clear pattern of mov- through 2016 and the future, giving good ¦ Bulker: Very low amount of repairs working methods accordingly. ing another step forward to achieving advantages to our common customers. being carried out in our region the demand of new services in our re- Concerning the rest of the ? eets, we mainly due to nature of repairs re- gion, mainly related to Oil & Gas Indus- The Ship Repair and Conversion foresee also a slight recovery also af- quired, for example extensive steel business, as you know better than try. Consequently, we are now improv- fected by the oil prices and consequently repairs. In these cases owners’ tend

I, is ultra competitive: What makes ing our business offer developing a new the freight rates. to take vessels to China.

ASTICAN and ASTANDER stand out?

range of services we can provide in our

Obviously our geographical locations area of in? uence.

How has the recent (prolonged) ¦ Gas tankers: It is not our core assists, giving us the opportunity to offer

One speci? c action I am doing is to our services to a wide range of custom- drop in oil pricing affected your business, but for the sizes we can move foward to make Astican the One- business?

handle it remains stable .

Stop-Shop location for the deepwater ers. But should we fail to give adequate

It is obvious that mainly the Oil & Gas would have grown as we have.

offshore industry in western Africa in It has been our aim to maintain a fair industry is experiencing a lot of changes ¦ Fishing ? eet: More than 30 years order to offer to rig owners as much and honest approach to each of our proj- due to the low oil prices, some of them ago, it used to be our main repair cost savings as we are able to get due to are related to the periodic maintenance activity thanks to the Ex- Soviet ects. Our prices cannot be comparable to synergies with the OEMs such as Rolls- and repairs of the drilling units, that of

Union and Korean ? eets. Nowadays those of other cheaper regions but we al-

Royce, and more to come. The industry course directly affects us.

we keep repairing around 50 ? shing ways try to assure the mutual bene? cial is facing challenging times and we are result assuring best possible personal ap-

There are many units out of contract ships a year.

here to help them. and suffering cancellations in their drill- www.marinelink.com 43

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