Western Marine Limited, the country’s leading shipbuilding industry in Bangladesh, delivers a repaired dredger to the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) yesterday.
CPA chairman Cdre Muhammed Anwarul Islam took the delivery of the dredger at a ceremony held at the Chittagong port gate Jetty 1. Heads of different government bodies, foreign experts, industrialists and other professionals were attend the handing over ceremony.
It is the only trailing suction hopper dredger named “M.D. KHANAK” in Bangladesh, which has been made operational after arduous repair work done by the Western Marine Services. The repair work costs BDT49.0 crore.
Dredger ‘KHANAK’ with hopper capacity of 2500m3 sank in the Karnaphuly River after head on head collision with an inbound foreign ship on October 21, 2009.
The sunken vessel was recovered by a salvage company with extensive damage in its engines and automation system in salt water.
After arduous effort and repair work by the Western Marine has brought the inoperative vessel back to operative. This has been considered as one of the most complicated engineering recoveries of a ship in Bangladesh.
The Western Marine Services won the bidding for repair and renovation work on the June 1, 2010. Five top leading ship repairers, including Chittagong Dry Dock Ltd participated in the bidding process called by the CPA. Among the bidders, Western Marine Services was awarded for the work as it was selected as the lowest bidder.
Chairman of Western Marine Shipyard Saiful Islam mentioned that Western Marine has always served the Chittagong port since its establishment in 1994. Because once foreign ships used to avoid calling ports in Bangladesh for unavailability of technical expertise in our ports and Western Marine was the first company established in Bangladesh to provide such service & today our port is always full of inbound ships & the number is at rise every year contributing to our foreign reserve.
Managing Director of Western Marine Services Sakhawat Hossain said, “ The port will regain its full competence once again from addition of KHANAK to its fleet. Ships of bigger capacity will now again come to the port contributing more in the national revenue.”
Chairman of CPA Cdre Anwarul Islam said: “ The repaired KHANAK is as good as anew dredger now.”
Among others the Editor of Daily Azadi M A Malek, the Managing Director of Wartsila Bangladesh Mohammed Shameem, DMD of Dhaka Bank Tanweer Rahim and Technical Director of Western Marine Services Mohammed Abdul Mobin delivered their speech during the event.
Foreign experts from Finland, Poland, France, Singapore, UAE and Germany along with local engineers were engaged in the repair and renovation work. Genuine spare parts were imported directly from the manufacturer WARTSILA.
It is believed that a large amount of the country’s national revenue is earned from the Chittagong Port each year. Any kind of halt in port activity is considered as huge national losses. The repaired dredger will play a vital role to the port activities, allowing the ocean going vessels easy access to the port. The adding of KHANAK to the fleet of the country’s prime port will strengthen its capacity, leading contribution to the economy.
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Dredging Today Staff, January 18, 2012; Image: pmsctg