Feature 1 | SOUTH KOREA
SPP will follow market demand and will start to build chemical and product tankers says the yard management
received this year are not nearly enough to cover the yard’s costs. In such a challenging climate Sungdong
has devised a strategy to cut its costs. “Te plan is to shut down one third of the yard,” explains Koo, “we have six skids and will shut down two next year and we are looking to subcontract offshore work from larger yards if there are still no meaningful orders in the third and fourth quarters.” To say the orderbook in Korea’s yards has
diminished is to understate the case. In fact this year has seen such a poor performance by the Korean yards across the board that the member yards of the Korean Shipbuilders’ Association (KOSHIPA) have instructed their representative body to withhold details of this year’s new orders. Not all of Korea’s yards are suffering in
the way that Sungdong and 21st Century are, at least one, SPP, claims that it is maintaining its position in the market and hopes to come out of the recession stronger. “Some 80-90% of our employees are
former Hanjin workers,” explains SPP executive vice president of
the sales
and marketing department Socrates Park (known as Socrates following his placement in Athens). He went on to say that the company has retained some 1,000 direct employees, many of them former
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Hanjin designers, and around 5,000 sub-contractors. Park says that SPP has concentrated
on around six vessel types over the last five years, Kamsarmax, Handymax and Supramax bulk carriers and medium range tankers, around 50,000dwt and long range tankers of 73,000dwt and 113,000dwt. “We cannot compete with the Chinese
on bulk carriers, now,” explains Socrates so the company will concentrate more on high value vessels. In future SPP will look for orders of small to medium sized LNG and LPG carriers as well as ethylene tankers. “In 2016 environmental regulations will
change and we have requests from clients for new dual-fuel designs and we must follow market demand,” says Socrates. SPP is looking at the closure of chemical
and products plants in the US and Japan with new manufacturing centres being built in Saudi Arabia and India. SPP will look to take advantage of the chemical shipping demand that will be derived from these new plants. “We can’t compete with the big yards
for large vessels but small to medium sized ships, 10,000m3
LNG bunkering vessels, 12,000-22,000dwt ethylene carriers and
38,000dwt prismatic LPG carriers are a possibility for us,” claims Socrates. The yard is currently developing the
design concepts for these new vessels with Wärtsilä and MAN Diesel & Turbo. For example the 50,000dwt MR tanker will have a reduced fuel consumption of 23tonnes/ day, “the lowest fuel consumption in the world,” claims Socrates. In addition slender hull forms along with
electronic injection and optimised shaſt and propeller functions will help to maintain the fuel efficiency of the new designs. Even with SPP looking at successfully holding on to its tanker business while conceding bulk carriers to the Chinese, the wider Korean picture is of a shiſt to new markets. It is no secret that around 60% of new
orders in South Korea have been in the offshore sector and that the offshore market is beginning to challenge the shipbuilding sector for top spot at Korean yards. The big three Industries
yards, Heavy (SHI), Hyundai
Heavy Industries (HHI) and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) are all attempting to diversify their workload by looking to the offshore sector for orders. The LNG shipping sector remains the one bright spot in an otherwise difficult market.
The Naval Architect October 2012
Samsung
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