61 Communards Shipbuilding Yard

"Shipbuilding Plant name of 61 Communards is one of the biggest shipbuilding company (civil shipbuilding, military shipbuilding, and ship repair). The oldest and one of the biggest plants in Ukraine, the Shipyard named after 61 Communards, marked its 225 anniversary in 2013. The plant also had a museum that was set in the 19th-century facility. Thousands of exhibits represent the history of the plant, the construction of the first wooden, and then warships for fleets of the Soviet Union and refrigerator trucks, whaling ships, submarines. Having traditional long-term experience and skilled personnel the shipyard is ready for construction of new generation warships. The Commission for Re-adjustment, Restructuring and Bankruptcy of Enterprises at Ministry of Industrial Policies of Ukraine has worked out and approved the projects for restructuring 61 Communars' Shipyard (Nikolayev).

State enterprise " The shipyard named after 61 Communards" is situated in the city of Nikolaev on the banks of Ingul river, 55 miles from the Black sea. The total area of the enterprise is 1414.5 thousand square metres , with building up area of 476.5 thousand square metres. Production capacities of the enterprise are concentrated in 286 industrial buildings and 165 industrial structures.

Technological and organizational possibilities of the shipyard allows to build contemporary, highly efficient and reliable vessels of all types with hull weight up to 28 000 tonnes. Hulls construction is made on three building berths with partial installation and mounting of equipment and machinery simultaneously. The total length of warfs equipped with necessary infrastructure makes 1248 m that allows to outfit simultaneously no less than 10 vessels.

Production capacities of pipe machining, mechanical mounting, electrical engineering, paint and insulation, woodworking and machine building workshops are involved in the process of shipbuilding and ship repair without enlisting a contractor. Floating dock of 7000 t lifting capacity allows to perform any kind of ship repair for the ships of up to 140 m length and up to 20 m width. Maintenance on repairing or modernization of the vessels in different parts of the world is carried out by means of mobile teams of highly qualified engineers and specialists.

In connection with conversion the excessive production areas (20 thousand square metres), covered terminals to keep and handle different kinds of cargo (30 thousand sq. m), terminal equipped for keeping, receiving and giving out luboil and fuel (10 thousand sq. m) have appeared at the shipyard. All kinds of production are equipped to the sufficient extent with machining, woodworking, lifting and transportation machinery. All kinds of materials and technical supply are carried out on the basis of information accumulated for the last years about suppliers of materials and ship's equipment in Ukraine and abroad. The basis of the experience amassed in the shipbuilding and ship engineering are highly qualified engineers and workers at the shipyard. Besides shipbuilding which comprises 93.5% (in 1999) of the total production the shipyard carries out ship repairing, manufactures the articles of ship, industrial and special (licensed articles for nuclear power stations) machine building.

Production capacities of the enterprise are amassed in 286 industrial buildings and in 165 industrial structures. The total production area of the enterprise makes 125.5 thousand square meters. The disposed production capacities together with the highly qualified personnel allow to manufacture high quality produce that meets up-to-date requirements.

Manufacturing of hull parts are produced in the specialized workshop with production area of 14.2 thousand square meters. Rolled metal going into for manufacturing of the parts is undergone to preliminary machining including cleaning to Sa 2*1/2 and inter operation priming. Manufacturing of parts is done by means of heat-cutting on programmed numerical control cutting machines, semi-automatic machines and with guillotines. Parts' bending is done on hydraulic pressers and bending rolls. Sections' manufacturing is done in assembly and welding workshop with production area of 16.4 thousand square meters. Semi-automatic welding of carbon and alloyed steel is done with domestic equipment of "Granit-3" type and automatic welding is done with A2 equipment of ESAB company. Welding of alloys on aluminium and copper basis is done with units of 500 type and PRS-630 machine type. Welders are certified by register of shipping rules and German Lloyd.

In July 1999 the shipyard finished the repairing and delivered strike missile cruiser "Moscow" to the Russia's Department of Defence. From April 1999 the outfitting work on the flagship of Ukrainian Navy - missile cruiser "Ukraine" began. In 1999 government subsidies to finish the construction of the Ukrainian naval flagship missile cruiser Ukraine at the Mykolayiv Shipyard, proudly named for 61 Communards, were a mere 10% of the amount needed. According to shipyard general director Mykhailo Zhelo, his enterprise received UAH 4 million from the customer, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, instead of the UAH 40 million due.

Since the 1960s the Shipyard has been building reefer vessels for a merchant fleet. 90 vessels from 260 up to 500 thousand cu.ft. capacity were build and 25 of them delivered for export. Since 1991 the Shipyard cooperates with the Greece company "Laskaridis Shipping Company Ltd" and since 1997 with the joint Ukraine-Greece venture "Yugreftransflot-Lavinia". During the cooperation 15 reefer ships were delivered to the Customer and 2 reefer vessels for the company "Yugreftransflot-Lavinia" are under construction now.

The Designer Knysh refrigerating ship was set afloat at the 61 Communards Shipyard in Mykolayiv in May 2000. Designer Knysh was the fourth ship that had been build to order from a Ukrainian-Greek joint venture founded by Laskaridis Shipping of Greece and Sevastopol's YugRefTransFlot joint-stock company in Ukraine. Designer Knysh is an all-purpose refrigerating ship with a displacement of 10,000 metric tons, designed for the transportation of up to 5,000 tonnes of various products. Cargo holds have a capacity of 270,000 cubic foots. The ship is equipped with up-to-date navigation equipment and refrigerators, and can be operated in freezing temperatures.

According to Mykhailo Zhelo, general director of the 61 Communards Shipyard, the project to build a series of refrigerating ships was funded by the Greek and Ukrainian sides, with the latter failing to meet its obligations. The final cost of the ship ($16 million) far exceeded the price of $11 million set in signing the contract in 1993. The gap is to be covered at the cost of the funds provided by the Ukrainian government in support of the national shipbuilding industry. The Ukrainian side was going to meet its financial obligations at the expense of a loan from Germany's Deutsche Shipping Bank, according to chairman of the Ukrainian Shipbuilders' Association Vasyl Hureev. Designer Knysh was to be turned over to the customer in the first quarter of 2001. The 61 Communards shipyard was concurrently building an equivalent ship, that was 92 percent finished.

During the period of 2001-2003 the Shipyard built and delivered 3 hulls of supply vessels and 2 hulls of arctic trawlers to the Bergen Yards AS Norway company. Norwegian shipbuilders highly appreciated professionalism and quality of the work carried out by the shipbuilders in Nikolaev.

In April - May of 2003 two contracts were signed with the French company Vopak LMF on manufacturing of the special foundations and renovation of the barges for the drilling platform modules transportation. June 14, 2003 the contract was signed with the Delta - Pilot state enterprise on building of the multi-purpose tug boat L=34? with a tractive force of 60t. On 27 October 2003 a contract on construction of ice-breaker was concluded with Delta-Pilot state company. On30 January 2004 a contract was concluded with Factoria Naval de Marin s.a. Spanish firm on construction of 2 (+2) hulls of 4500 dwt bulk carriers. 5 November and 24 December 2004 the first and second hulls were laid.

On 27 March 2004 a contract was concluded with Havyard Leirvik AS Norwegian firm on construction of 99.8 m long ice breaker hull. On October 8, 2004 the ceremonial laying of the hull took place. The General customer of the complete vessel is the Russia's Sevmorneftegas company. On October 9, 2004 a contract was signed on construction of the second hull of the ice breaker. On April 21, 2005 the contracts were concluded with Factoria Naval de Marin s.a. Spanish firm on construction of three (+2) hulls of 4500 dwt bulk carriers that is sequential construction of a series of container ships.

In 2004 the 61 Communards Shipyard refused from building the patrol ships Gyurza for the Uzbeck navy. The ships were specially designed for the forces fighting drugs trafficking. The newbuildings were financed by the US military aid to the Uzbekistan. According to the General Director of the Shipyard Valery Agafonov the refusal is due to the difficulties with attracting $3.5-4m of the required credits without state guarantees. Also he said that the project was minimally profitable for the shipyard. However, General Director assumed that another Ukrainian shipyard is going to take over the order. The US does not specify the volume of financing. The first ship was to have been completed this summer, the second – in the end of the year.

By 2006 the 61 Communards Shipyard had not the best times. Growth of debts on wages (for today it makes over 5 million UAH), not clear situation with the cruiser "Ukraine", small orders from foreign and domestic ship-owners does not inspire optimism to 2,5 thousand workers of this enterprise. And on this background — the claim in the London arbitrary court from Greek ship-owner Anastasisa Laskaridisa and the governmental decision on privatization of the plant. General director Valery Agafonov is not the opponent of privatization, as he said at a press conference. But in the future privatization of the enterprise it is important who will buy this plant and secondly the long period of stagnation of the enterprise is partially explained by the eternal expectation of the privatization.

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov assured the employees of the enterprise on 28 August 2012 during a trip to Mykolayiv that the Government would pay off the debts of Mykolayiv Plant named after 61 Communards. The meeting was not provided for by the programme of a visit, but having heard about the problems of the plant employees, Prime Minister talked to them and promised to help them. "The debt problem of the plant will be solved. First, we will solve the issue of arrears of current wages and we are going to gradually eliminate this debt, "- Mykola Azarov said. The plant employees said they had not got wages for 9 months, that the plant was not working and that the plant property was arrested.

In March 2013, for the first time in five years, the 61 Communards shipbuilding plant (Mykolaiv) took for repair two cargo ships for the transportation of bulk materials, the press service of SE Ukroboronprom reported. The complex repair involves updating basic systems and equipment, as well as the propeller-rudder systems; hydraulic tests are also planned, and the like. The approximate length of the ships' stay in the dock is 240 days. It is planned to involve in the repair 80 workers and 15 engineers of the company's two shops.

The plant's management was in talks with a foreign customer on a possible construction of new vessels at the company's facilities. "The 61 Communards shipbuilding plant also hoped to load its capacities through participation in the defense ministry tenders for the repair of naval ships.

SE Ukroboronprom, which includes the company, noted that these and other events took place in the framework of the concern's policy of resumption of production activities of the plant and improvement of its financial condition. Now, in order to strengthen the internal production cooperation of the concern's enterprises, the plant was fulfilling the order of SE Ukroboronprom to manufacture armor bodies for the implementation of international contracts. Until the end of 2013, it was planned to make about 60 bodies.