Azerbaijan State Caspian Sea Shipping Company expects the cost of Azerbaijani marine vessels to be lower than world level

Chief of the Company Aydin Bashirov said that at first price of vessels, manufactured in Azerbaijan, will be the same as upon purchasing foreign ones.

“However, situation will change when serial production of vessels to be started. The first ship of series will be always more expensive and the third and fourth ones – cheaper,” A. Bashirov said.

From 2010, the Company refused to import vessels, expecting start of production in the country, because practical implementation of   protocol of intentions on construction of single shipbuilding yard in Azerbaijan, which was signed in Baku between President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Rovnag Abdullayev, Executive Director of Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) Afghan Isayev and Executive Director of Singapore’s Keppel Offshore & Marine Toing Choyng Hong on 20 November 2009.

The Keppel Offshore acquired a 10% stake in the project upon expiration fixed 90-day period.

As the result, Keppel, the contractor of the construction and managing company, owns 10%, SOCAR 65%, and AIC up to 25%. Preliminarily the factory construction project to last 2.5-3 years is evaluated at $300-350 million. 30% of investments are to be made by companies themselves and 70% will be raised.

The new enterprise will be constructed north-east of the SOCAR’s Baku Deepwater Jackets Factory named after  Heydar Aliyev. The shipbuilding factory will manufacture various types of vessels, including tankers with deadweight of up to 60,000 tons to the order of SOCAR, Azerbaijan State Caspian Shipping, State Border Service, Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan and orders of other countries.

According to SOCAR, there is demand for production of 110 vessels during 20 years, but the new enterprise will operate depending on available portfolio of orders.

Earlier, SOCAR wanted to construct the factory with S Korea’s STX, with which it signed a protocol of intentions. But the Korean company changed its offers because of the global crisis and that did not suit SOCAR and cancelled memorandum with it.

Keppel Fells has cooperated with SOCAR during more than 12 years.


/Abc.az/