New Vessel Christened

This year’s first ship went down the Leninska Kuznia Plant slipway during the first May downpour. “This is an omen for money,” said Petro Poroshenko, People’s Deputy of Ukraine and honorary president of Ukrprominvest. The 1,500 ton capacity dry-cargo vessel is being manufactured against a one million mark order from the German Schiffswerft Schlomer GmbH Co. KG. This is the sixth vessel built in Kyiv for Western customers, which Mr. Poroshenko thinks testifies to the recognition of Ukrainian quality on the international shipbuilding market.

While the Kyiv shipbuilders are making the hulls of dry-cargo ships (90% of the whole scope of work), the customer deals with the installation of equipment. Mr. Poroshenko attributes this to the prohibitive cost of material and technical resources in Ukraine, which considerably boosts the price of a vessel in case of closed-cycle production. Yet, there is one order from the Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense to be executed from beginning to end: the Navy will receive a fully-equipped corvette in 2001. Now, as Mr. Poroshenko informed us, this warship, to be fitted with the most up-to-date equipment, is 70% ready. According to Mr. Poroshenko, while building it, the plant utilized for the first time a technical credit granted by the state. All the previous vessels were built at Leninska Kuznia with the assistance of Ukrprominvest, which secured financial guarantees for a number of projects in 1998-1999.

Leninska Kuznia is to launch another 4-5 vessels by the end of the current year. “Our capacities are fully loaded (incidentally, average wages here are 600 hryvnias a month). Thus, even if we lack workers with the necessary skills (2,000 workers are employed at the plant — Ed.), we hire people from Kherson, Mykolayiv, and Kerch,” plant general manager Petro Blindar said.