Turkish shipyards can’t absorb high demand alone
Posted by meb at March 13th, 2007
Even though the Turkish ship industry has increased the number of its shipyards by 62 percent, it transferred 7.5 million dead weight tons of orders to the Far East as all sites are full until 2010.
Enjoying its heyday, the Turkish ship building industry has been having a hard time meeting the high demand. It found the solution by constructing larger vessels in the Far East. While ship owners construct ships with an average of 30,000 dead weight tons (dwt), they have outsourced ship orders to Japan, Korea and China for ships larger than 100,000 dwt between 2007 and 2010. Among those who have placed orders for ships for the Far East are Cengiz Kaptanoğlu, Yalçın Sabancı and Mehmet Emin Karamehmet.
Having made it through the crisis in 2003, the Turkish ship building industry today has 7.5 million dwt capacity with 45 companies. The number of shipyards, which was 37 in 2002, has increased by 62 percent and has reached 62 this year. However, with Turkish shipyards full until 2010, the number of shipyards is still not enough. Not accepting any new orders, the shipyards are estimated to have outsourced a total of 7.5 million dwt ship orders to Far Eastern countries.
Karamehmet preferred Korea:
Geden Line, owned by businessman Karamehmet, has placed orders to Korea for 20 vessels, 11 of which are tankers especially designed to carry chemical substances and eight vessels to China, all to be delivered in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Thereby, Geden Line will receive a 61 ships by 2010. Today the company has eight ships whose weights vary from 41,000 to 175,000 dwt.
Kaptanoğlu Holding, owned by Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Cengiz Kaptanoğlu, has given an order for four Aframax ships to the South Korean Hanjin Shipyards. It is estimated that each ship will cost $64.1 million.
Businessman Yalçın Sabancı’s company, YA-SA Marine, has placed orders in Japan. YA-SA, which has placed orders for 13 vessels between 75 dwt and 200 dwt in a number of shipyards in Japan, will be receiving six ships this year and four more in 2008. It is stated that with the vessels delivered in 2008 the number of YA-SA Marine ships will go up to 22, and its total capacity to 1.8 million dwt. It is noted that with the completion of the orders, Sabancı will hold 25-30 percent of Turkish marine transportation market.
“We will close a factory for three years”:
Owned by Eşref Cerrahoğlu, Cerrahgil Marine, in partnership with a German firm, is trying to close up the capacity of a shipyard in China for three years. It is expected that the agreement with the shipyard, which has a capacity to build 30 ships with 75,000 dwt in three years, will be finalized within a month.
Eşref Cerrahoğlu said they are having trouble due to Cosco, the biggest ship building company in China. Noting that a “performance guarantee” is asked for while buying a ship abroad, Cerrahoğlu said: “The guarantee is issued by banks in Japan, by the National Export Credit Bank in Korea and by the National Central Bank and the National Export Credit Bank in China. When you place an order in a shipyard in China, the Chinese firm Cosco tries to act quicker and place an order at the same shipyard. Right now, we still have not received our guarantee and there are risks involved.” Explaining that many ship owners’ agreements in China have fallen through because of Cosco, Cerrahoğlu added there are currently 10 small shipyards in China and 20 more are being built.
Cerrahgil Group of Companies and TÜRMEPA President Eşref Cerrahoğlu said that ordering ships abroad has become more difficult, adding: “The door is open if an order is to be placed before 2012. However, no shipyard owner would like to take an order for 2012. Japan is full until 2012, Korea until 2011 and the old shipyards in China until 2011.”
source: Referans through Turkish Daily News
Related posts: