Russian shipbuilding has been left without key components due to sanctions – mass media
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Russian shipbuilding corporations are running out of key parts, in particular – for engines, which delays or stops the production of tankers and vessels needed to transport oil and cargo.
He writes about it The Wall Street Journal with reference to informed interlocutors.
The state-owned United Shipbuilding Company (USK) has been under Western sanctions since 2014, but problems with obtaining equipment and foreign specialists to install parts “became systemic” after the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
OSK and another state-owned enterprise, the Zvezda shipbuilding complex, are the two largest shipyards in the Russian Federation by the volume of orders. They manufacture vessels ranging from nuclear submarines and frigates to icebreakers and passenger ships, mostly for the domestic market. As a result, problems with production will be felt mostly in the Russian Federation itself.
A stable client of both Russian shipyards is the state-owned tanker operator Sovcomflot, which also came under sanctions and therefore sold more than a third of its fleet and moved its operations to Dubai.
The EU and the US imposed a ban on Russian ships entering their ports, as well as sanctions on tankers carrying Russian oil. Therefore, Russian oil exporters use an outdated fleet of tankers, which currently transports the majority of Russian oil exports by sea.
Advisor on Investments in the Russian Federation INFOline reported that local shipyards delivered 20% fewer vessels last year than in 2021. The tonnage increased somewhat due to the delivery by Zvyezda of two large tankers for Sovkomflot and another state-owned tanker owner – Rosnefteflot.
Currently, USC is building 59 cargo ships. In 2020, the company delivered 17 ships, and 16 more in 2021. But only four were built last year as the German propellers are no longer supplied.
Russian shipping company executives say shipyards are trying to make some of the missing parts themselves or replace them with imports from China, but creating new shipbuilding supply chains takes time and increases costs.
This year, “Zvezda” is to deliver more than 50 vessels under the contract. Components for the ships were purchased before the sanctions were imposed, but they are being built with Korean partners, and that cooperation has stopped, according to people familiar with the matter.
The manager of one of the Zvezda plants said that the lack of imported engines disrupts production at his plant, and the production of some parts inside Russia will take several years.
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