Page 39 - Журнал Sozvezdye Review - «СОЗВЕЗДИЕ» #42

Vasily Shaitanov, Kimek, Director General:
The need for increased capacity for servicing the
cargo carriers has never been more acute as today.
This is due to the combined effect of multiple rea-
sons. First, repair services can no longer be received
in Europe – the most pressing circumstance. Second,
there has been an increase in orders being placed with
ship repair providers by the Navy. And, the circum-
stance I’d cite as reason number three is the growing
number of ships – the increase may not be as rapid
as envisaged in the many framework documents, but
it does take place. We have more ships operating in
the Arctic basin and they, too, require maintenance
and service.
Another evidence of lacking repair capacities is
ship owners and operators having their ships repaired
in Kaliningrad, Saint Petersburg, Turkey or China.
This trend arose historically: commercial fleet repairs
as an industry didn’t exist on our map for decades.
But it will emerge, given its high place on the gov-
ernment agenda and the way the market is changing
these days.
The mechanics of repairing the Arctic-going fleet
is open knowledge. Ship owners are well aware of
what, when and how they need to service the onboard
systems. The issue here is the availability of service
supply and access to international expertise as what
can lead to better repairs quality and management.
Supply can be increased through modernizing the ex-
isting or starting new repair facilities. As to the ex-
pertise, it can be sourced from those with experience
of interacting with the foreign yards – class inspec-
tors, surveillance team supervisors, former and cur-
rent employees of the offices of Western companies.
The question of upgrading the commercial fleet
repairs industry comes down to one – capital expens-
es and payback. Apparently the only answer here is
public-private partnership and commercial coopera-
tion, as was the case in many other countries. They
won’t, of course, immediately remedy the second-tier
issues such as lack of qualified managerial personnel,
cutting-edge technologies or low workplace culture,
but to me they aren’t really problems. They are chal-
lenges that can be tackled, and tacking them is actu-
ally a matter of survival on the market.
The domestic ship repair industries are operat-
ing under sanctions pressure, and this pressure keeps
piling. Cracks did emerge, true, but they aren’t criti-
cal. The fleet continues to operate as planned. A lot not more than 50% of vessels, forcing their owners to
of companies resorted to parallel import as a tempo- turn to Baltic yards and Turkey for repairs.
rary solution to cover their current needs, but any Dock capacity is simply limited. In the port of
further use of this scheme will lead to nothing but in- Arkhangelsk, the only dock that can accommodate a
crease in vessels operating costs. Speaking long-term, 90 meters long ship for repairs is Krasnaya Kuznitsa
we should be able to design our own technologies or and it’s overloaded with orders. For its ship owners
use those of friendly countries. But there’s no denying to be able to receive services at home, the area needs
that Russia and China are lagging behind Europe. All at least two more docks with the capacity for ships
of the Russian and Chinese technologies I got to work with length of 110–150 meters and weight of 5,000–
with have the size, weight and operational logic that 10,000 tons. Besides, repairs on the units and tech-
put them at a disadvantage compared to their Euro- nologies of foreign manufacture require high-preci-
pean counterparts. I don’t mean to say they are bad, sion machining tools, bringing up the need for overall
but this technological is a fact we can’t deny. upgrade. Some yards including ours are coping quite
One interesting task many of us have been dealing okay purchasing new machines, but full-scale replace-
a lot with recently is reengineering of spare parts and ment is costly and yet to be achieved.
units that can’t be imported through the official chan- Another equally important issue is the lack of
nels. The results of this work will benefit the industry qualified manpower. It’s worth noting that service
only if circulated throughout the country and applied technicians’ average age nears 45–55 as of 2023. There SOZVEZDYE #42
massively. There should be strong involvement on the aren’t enough schools, and very little has been done
part of the state, otherwise they’ll be no use. over the past thirty years to encourage younger gen-
erations to pursue careers in technical service sector.
Sergey Malgin, Arkhangelsk Trawl Fleet, Main- Still, the biggest challenge lies in replacing the развитие
tenance Director: components and technologies that we no longer have development
As of mid-2023, the shortage of repairs capacity at the access to. It makes no sense to even talk about it
yards in Arkhangelsk Oblast is critical. The demand unless we find a way to start their domestic produc-
from the domestic (and especially Murmansk-based) tion. The problem with the majority of Western-man-
ship owners is peaking, caused by EU sanctions and ufacture equipment installed on Russian ships is the
ship owners being banned from having their ships lack of spare parts: 90% of what ships need to have re-
serviced in Europe. The current capacity suffices for placed is under sanctions. Failing engines need spare 37
parts, and the current scope of parallel imports no