Plans for a major new shipyard at Baku, in Azerbaijan, are underway, with the new facility expected to be fully operational in June 2013. The new shipbuilding and repair yard, called the Baku Shipyard Factory, is a joint-venture between SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan), Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) and Singapore’s Keppel Offshore and Marine and is being constructed to suport the requirements of the burgeoining offshore oil and gas industry in the Caspian Sea.
Keppel Singmarine general manager Poon Tai Lum tells Shipping World & Shipbuilder that although the yard is still in the early planning stage, it will have a 150m x 40m floating dock which will work in conjunction with a ship transfer system.
‘It will be a big yard but the vessels that we repair and maintain will be those that operate only in the Caspian Sea. We will also undertake shipbuilding work at the yard,’ he says. Baku Shipyard Factory’s annual shipbuilding capacity will be four 15 000dwt shuttle tankers and four maintenance or towing vessels.
Keppel Singamrine has a ten per cent stake in the joint-venture but has options to increase this by an additonal ten per cent in the coming three years.
A Memorandum of Understanding on the project was signed at the end of 2009. The British Royal Haskoning Company and the Dutch TTC are currently carrying out the pre-planning work.
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Source: imarest, May 17, 2011; Image:news.az