The State United Shipbuilding Corporation will not create a Southern Center for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair. The reason for this decision was that the administration Astrakhan region could not find property worth 218 million rubles. for contribution to the authorized capital of the center. However, USC plans to abandon such intermediate structures altogether and liquidate the three shipbuilding centers already existing in its structure.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade yesterday published a draft decree of the President of Russia on the cancellation of the decision to create the Southern Center for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair OJSC (USSC) within the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). As they say in explanatory note to the draft decree (available to Kommersant), the problem is that the government of the Astrakhan region was unable to pay for its 25% share in the authorized capital of the South Central Soviet Union.
USC was supposed to contribute shares (from 25% to 44%) in seven shipbuilding enterprises to the authorized capital of the South Central Shipyard (see reference), and the regional authorities were to contribute their 5% shares of the Lotos plant. At the same time, according to the law “On the Privatization of State Property,” the region was supposed to receive at least a blocking stake in the South Central Investment Center, but the assessment of the parties’ contributions required the Astrakhan region to add another 218 million rubles to the capital of the center. On July 7, regional authorities notified USC that they could not find “suitable property.”
The YCSS was supposed to unite seven shipbuilding enterprises not only in the south of Russia, but also in the Tomsk and Ulyanovsk regions. By Presidential Decree N 696 of June 9, 2010, USC was transferred from federal property to 30.2% of the Novorossiysk Shipyard, 44% of the Lotos Plant, 25.5% of the Karl Marx Shipyard, 25.4% of the Tuapse Shipyard plant, 25.5% of the Kriushinsky shipbuilding and ship repair plant, 25.5% of the Samussky shipbuilding and ship repair plant and 25.5% of the Nizhny Novgorod Motor Ship plant.
The USC "Kommersant" confirmed that the YCSS will not be created, but refused official comments. A source at USC, however, said that this “does not cancel any of the corporation’s projects to develop shipbuilding in southern Russia, but even simplifies their implementation.” Moreover, according to Kommersant’s interlocutor, the USC development concept until 2015, which, however, has not yet been approved by the corporation’s board of directors, “involves the liquidation of regional shipbuilding and ship repair centers” because they “complicate the management of the company and are an unnecessary bureaucratic link ".
This year we intend to complete the integration of shipbuilding enterprises in the region and create a southern shipbuilding center as part of USC
- Alexander Zhilkin, governor of the Astrakhan region, in August 2009, during the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Astrakhan
Currently, USC includes three shipbuilding and ship repair centers: Western, Northern and Far Eastern. Western center unites six enterprises located in St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Kaliningrad, Severny includes ten factories in Severodvinsk and Snezhnogorsk, including the largest enterprises OSK Zvezdochka and Sevmash. The Far Eastern Center includes ten small factories in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and other cities Far East, as well as two large joint ventures “Zvezda-DSME” and “Vostok-Raffles”. As the interlocutor of Kommersant explained, regional centers were necessary “at the stage of asset consolidation” for “the prompt collection and registration of documents on numerous objects,” but now that the process of creating the USC is almost completed, “the parent organization and regional centers often perform duplicative functions.” According to Kommersant's source, the Northern and Western centers, "free from obligations to partners and contractors," will be liquidated no later than 2012, and the Far Eastern - in 2013-2014, because "first it must deliver all orders."
"USC, in fact, artificial structure, a superstructure, a management company that should control the movement of financial flows, help attract orders and “cheap” money, so the corporation only needs one head office,” says Nadezhda Malysheva from PortNews. In her opinion, local shipbuilding centers were created in order to control scattered factories locally, and now “their degree of loyalty is high.” Mikhail Pak from Aton Investment Company believes that “at the stage of asset restructuring, it is logical for all enterprises to be united in one parent company.” “Local control centers can be created through several years, when all assets will be “combed,” he says.
The United Shipbuilding Corporation is liquidating the Western Shipbuilding Center (ZCS) and JSC North Center shipbuilding and ship repair" (SCSS). This was reported by Kommersant with reference to the USC press service.
Before liquidation, ZTS legally controlled parts of the authorized capital of the Baltic Shipyard, Severnaya Verf, Admiralty Shipyards, Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard, Vyborg Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard Yantar and the Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard in Nizhny Novgorod. SCSS owned shares in the capital of the Sevmash production association and the Zvezdochka ship repair center in Severodvinsk.
"The decision was made by the board of directors and the management board in pursuance of the strategy and long-term program development of USC, according to which a transition to a two-tier management system is envisaged,” explained the corporation’s press service. The liquidation of intermediate structures is intended to optimize the management system of subsidiaries and dependent companies.
USC still includes the Southern Center for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair (SCSS) and the Far Eastern Center for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair (DSSS). The corporation claims that further activities YTSSS "is under development." Shipbuilders believe that it will also be liquidated. DCSS management reform will not affect: USC today controls it only by 25%. The majority shareholder of DCSS is the company " Modern technologies shipbuilding" (50% each owned by Gazprombank and Rosneft).
It is noted that shipbuilding centers have never influenced the work of the factories. “All issues were resolved directly, through the USC head office in Moscow,” says a former manager of one of the shipyards. According to Kommersant’s interlocutor from another shipyard, the liquidation of shipbuilding centers will not bring USC savings: each of the joint-stock companies had several employees, the costs of maintaining the centers were insignificant on the scale of the state corporation.
Shipbuilders call the positions of directors of ZCS and SCSS formal, but the career of at least one major figure in Russian shipbuilding is connected with ZCS: in 2007-2011 it was headed by Alexander Buzakov, who later took the helm of the Admiralty Shipyards. USC President Alexei Rakhmanov calls this enterprise “the pearl in the corporation’s crown.” In the 2000s, Alexander Buzakov worked as the chief engineer of the Admiralty Shipyards. Subsequently, he headed the Severnaya Verf, Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard, after which he ended up at ZCS, where he stayed for four years until he had the opportunity to return to the Admiralty Shipyards as general director.
Last year, shipbuilding centers issued loans to controlled factories: SCSS allocated 25 million rubles to Zvezdochka, and ZCS provided a loan to Severnaya Verf for 82 million rubles. In addition, ZCS graduated last year with a loss of 337 million rubles. Senior lawyer Rightmark Group Oleg Lodyanov notes that the payment and collection of debts of the centers will be carried out by liquidation commissions; if signs of bankruptcy are detected, they must file a bankruptcy petition.
The proposal to unite the shipbuilding assets of the South on the basis of a public-private partnership was made back in 2008 and was supported by the Astrakhan governor AlexanderZhilkin. The goals were the concentration of production capacity of shipbuilding and ship repair plants (SSR) in the south of Russia, the attraction of industrial enterprises of the Caspian Basin and foreign shipbuilding companies interested in working in the Astrakhan region. Even structures from Singapore and the United Arab Emirates who showed interest were mentioned.
Two years ago, when the Western, Northern and Far Eastern centers of the USC had already been created, by presidential decree DmitryMedvedev a list of specialized enterprises was determined that were planned to be included in the YuTsSS (see “Forcing to shipbuilding G” “Expert YUG” No. 24–25 for 2010). It was assumed that the Southern Center would include the Novorossiysk, Kriushinsky (Ulyanovsk region) and Tuapse shipbuilding and ship repair plants, the Astrakhan shipyards named after Karl Marx and the Lotos Shipyard, as well as the Nizhny Novgorod Motor Ship plant and the Samussky Shipyard ( Tomsk region). USC was supposed to contribute to the authorized capital of the South Central Shipyard 30.2% of the Novorossiysk Shipyard, 44% of the Lotos, 25.4% of the Tuapse Shipyard and identical packages (25.5 each) of the Karl Marx Shipyard, Kriushinsky Shipyard, Samussky Shipyard and Nizhny Novgorod motor ship." The Astrakhan government, for its part, had to transfer its 5% stake in the Lotos Shipyard. However, immediately after this the consolidation stalled.
Ideological quest
Last summer, USC announced that the Southern Center would not be created due to the fact that the Astrakhan authorities could not find additional property worth 218 million rubles - a contribution to its authorized capital to obtain a blocking stake. A draft presidential decree was even prepared to cancel the order on the creation of the Southern Center for Social Sciences with the subsequent disbandment of existing three centers.
The battle of tendencies in the White House lasted whole year. As a result, at the end of April the idea was resurrected. According to the press secretary of USC AlexeyKravchenko, after the analysis, it was decided to complete the project of forming the USCC, and the Astrakhan authorities still found the missing property to be included in the authorized capital of the subholding.
The question of the amount of 218 million rubles is no longer on the table today, a source in the government of the Astrakhan region told Expert YUG. Most likely, this happened because in the summer of 2011, USC acquired a 41% stake in the Caspian Energy group, which includes the Astrakhan shipyards Lotos, Astrakhan Shipyard and the III International plant. Thus, a whole cluster of Astrakhan shipbuilding enterprises - at least 5 out of 16 - can now join the YCSS.
According to Alexey Kravchenko, a large shipbuilding zone can be created on the basis of the USC, which will include not only USC enterprises. The shipyards included in it will receive benefits on property and land taxes, payment of VAT, as well as depreciation charges. “In the next two to three years, after the launch of new shipyards and the start of construction of a large-tonnage fleet, by all criteria we will enter the top 10. This will give us the opportunity to reach the position of leading shipbuilding powers in terms of gross tonnage of ships,” said the deputy general director USC DmitriyMironenkov.
Long-standing controversy
The shipbuilding complex of the Astrakhan region is now represented by 12 large enterprises. The number of their workers exceeds 9 thousand people, and in a year all shipyards are capable of processing up to 50 thousand tons of metal. “Shipyards in the region today have different technical and financial condition, - says the technical director of the Red Barricades Shipyard SergeyChechurin, - therefore, the problems of joining a single structure are obvious. We will have to solve them before organizing anything. But the very idea of creating the USCS is not bad.” According to the General Director of the Association of Shipbuilders of the Astrakhan Region AlexandraVolynsky, The Southern Center could unite all the shipbuilding enterprises of the Volga and Don: “Hundreds of thousands of workers in this industry are underutilized. The shipbuilding industry in the south of Russia should be the strongest.”
Initially, in 2008, it was assumed that the consolidation of southern shipbuilders would take place around the already functioning Astrakhan Shipbuilding Production Association (ASPO), controlled by the Caspian Energy group. However, at first the FAS did not give permission for ASPO to acquire 100% of the shares of the Red Barricades plant, and then the shipbuilding companies of Rostov and Volgograd regions and Dagestan.
The fact that the creation of a “regional giant” did not happen before the crisis is quite understandable. Shipyards the south of Russia was then inundated with orders from shipping companies, and they hardly wanted to share with competitors. For example, Astrakhan Shipbuilder had seemingly reliable orders from LUKOIL for the manufacture of drilling platforms for the development of the Caspian shelf, and the company was simply not interested in taking on additional obligations from the state. His competitor in the region, the Red Barricades, also had their own interests, who did not want to unite with ASPO. In 2008, the management of this plant presented its own project for organizing a consortium for the development of oil and gas fields in the Northern Caspian Sea, which was to include the Singaporean company Keppel and the Russian Stroytransgaz Engineering.
During the crisis, shipbuilding sank significantly, which became an additional argument in favor of consolidating assets under the “umbrella” of the state - it was argued that it would be able to provide the industry with stable orders. However, as an analyst from FINAM Management noted: KonstantinRomanov, it still remains unclear how the USC management will distribute government orders within the subholding itself. As the expert believes, this could create competition within the state corporation itself. It is very likely that this could also become the basis for corruption in order to attract more profitable orders within the USC.
On the one hand, weaker enterprises benefit from joining the USC - they will be able to receive financing for their development. This is also beneficial for the state, which will find it easier to control financial flows. On the other hand, stronger shipyards, which are already provided with orders, are hardly interested in going under the “sovereign hand,” since decisions in large state-owned companies are made not locally, but in Moscow, and operational management there is no question. Perhaps this is precisely why USC has existed on paper for several years, but so far things have not gone beyond protocols of intent in the south of Russia, where the country’s main river shipbuilding assets are concentrated.
Path to the shelf
With the creation of the USCS, shipbuilders should receive guaranteed orders from oil companies developing the Caspian Sea shelf. The main customer is LUKOIL, which has licenses for six offshore fields and has already completed development of the first of them, named after Yuri Korchagin. By 2030, LUKOIL’s Caspian project will require the construction of at least 16 drilling complexes. According to the director of the consulting company IRP Group BulatStolyarov, Astrakhan shipbuilders can fulfill about 25% of the projected orders for the construction of offshore vessels.
It was to create the infrastructure of the Korchagin field that Astrakhan shipbuilders signed the first contracts with oil companies. In particular, at the Astrakhan Ship, the old floating drilling rig Shelf-7 (laid down in 1988) was converted into an ice-resistant stationary platform LSP-1. The oil holding explained the task not to build, but to renovate, by the fact that an examination carried out by the company’s specialists showed: the body of the installation is located in good condition and will be able to ensure operation of the platform for 30 years. However, according to the deputy head of the analytical department of Alor Group of Companies DmitryLyutyagina, this is because building a platform from scratch can cost up to $800 million, while modernizing former Soviet platforms will cost no more than $350–400 million.
The cooperation between oil workers and shipbuilders left an ambivalent impression. On the one hand, the proximity of shipyards to the drilling area plays a role positive role to increase the profitability of the project. On the other hand, this does not remove the claims of oil workers regarding the partners’ compliance with the terms of the contract itself. A source in LUKOIL claims that the holding’s management was not satisfied with the work of the shipbuilders because they missed the deadlines for fulfilling the contract, spending a year and a half more on the construction of the LSP than they promised. However, according to the Deputy Minister of Transport of the Astrakhan Region StanislavaFedulova, the oil workers themselves underpaid Caspian Energy 1.5 billion rubles under the contract, but it is now almost impossible to prove this due to untimely submission of documents. Be that as it may, the oil holding was forced to postpone the start of production at the Korchagin field from 2009 to 2010.
That is why LUKOIL placed orders for the construction of offshore vessels for the Vladimir Filanovsky field from competitors of Caspian Energy - at the Red Barricades, which were created back in the 1930s as a structure of the People's Commissariat oil industry for the construction of specialized vessels. It was at this shipyard that the Astra jack-up floating drilling rig was built, with the help of which LUKOIL discovered six of its fields in the Caspian Sea.
At the end of last year in Severodvinsk, LUKOIL signed contracts with OSK, Red Barricades and the Globalstroy-Engineering company for the development and construction of priority facilities for the development of the Filanovsky field, the start of production at which is scheduled for 2015. In February, the laying of the main facilities intended for the field took place at the Red Barricades - the platform of the residential module and the riser block (a module for connecting in-field pipelines and receiving extracted raw materials). According to the general director of the company AlexandraIlyicheva, in connection with projects on the Caspian shelf, “Red Barricades” intend to increase the workforce by a thousand people, and the volume of products - up to 12 thousand tons of metal structures per year. Governor Alexander Zhilkin believes that the creation of an offshore fleet will help increase the gross output of Astrakhan shipbuilders three times in 2012 compared to last year, when this figure amounted to 5.1 billion rubles.
At the same time, the technological backwardness of Russian shipyards forces them to import everything complex elements equipment and resort to the services of foreign companies for their installation. Under these conditions, it is faster, more reliable and cheaper for shipowners to simply place orders abroad. According to calculations by IRP Group analysts, about $1 billion is required to modernize the capacities of Astrakhan shipbuilders in order to smoothly fulfill the orders of oil workers. Whether this money will be found today is a big question.
United Shipbuilding Corporation announced the completion of the formation of a new structural unit. To work with the Black Sea Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla of the Russian Navy, the Southern Center for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair was created. The center included five shipbuilding and repair plants. These are the Novorossiysk, Tuapse and Kriushinsky shipbuilding and ship repair plants, as well as the Astrakhan enterprises “Shipyard named after. Karl Marx" and "Lotus". The main task of the Southern Center is construction and repair support Black Sea Fleet And Caspian flotilla. Moreover, it seems that work with Black Sea sailors will have a higher priority. The official ceremony of establishing the center will take place on February 4.
The creation of the Southern Center for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair became known a few months ago, when USC management announced its intentions to create another center, in addition to the Northern, Western and Far Eastern. Thus, all operational-strategic associations Russian Navy received their own shipbuilding and ship repair centers. The experience of previous years showed the benefits of such a solution, which ultimately led to the creation of the latest center.
It is noteworthy that the creation of the Southern Center, primarily intended to work with the Black Sea Fleet, has a special priority in the current situation. After the breakup Soviet Union a considerable part of the infrastructure of the Black Sea Fleet, as well as some of the ships, went to independent Ukraine. Due to the series controversial issues, some of which have not yet been resolved, the Russian Black Sea Fleet tested a number of serious problems concerning the construction and repair of ships. In past years, the Black Sea Fleet received equipment, in the vast majority of cases, produced at nearby enterprises. Now, for obvious reasons, it is very often necessary to distill ready ships And submarines from the Baltic or northern shipyards. It is not difficult to guess how logistics and repair procedures become more complicated in this case.
First of all, based on precisely these considerations, at one time the leadership of the fleet and industry began to create regional centers for shipbuilding and ship repair. However, it is not entirely clear why the center in the Black Sea and Caspian “directions” appeared last. Currently, in light of events in the Middle East and northern Africa, the development of the Black Sea Fleet has the highest priority, because it is this formation that is based closest to the areas of tension and can respond faster than others to emerging threats. Nevertheless, the leadership of the Navy and USC, for some reason, decided to build the centers in exactly this sequence. Perhaps it was decided to work out the creation and operating mechanisms of shipbuilding centers on the basis of the already existing developed infrastructures of the Northern and Pacific Fleet and only then create a similar structure in the Black Sea Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla. One way or another, now, despite the difference in the time of creation, all formations of the Russian Navy will have their own shipbuilding and ship repair centers.
Judging by the available information, during the first years main task The Southern Center will service the existing fleet equipment, including those built at other enterprises. At the same time, USC will modernize its production facilities, which will make it possible to subsequently resume the construction of ships at the Black Sea shipyards. After the start of construction of new ships, the Black Sea Fleet and its auxiliary infrastructure can be called fully independent. Among other things, the resumption of construction new technology will be useful in view geographical location Black Sea Fleet. Under certain circumstances, during an armed conflict, ships of the Black Sea Fleet may be locked in the sea. In that case, everything renovation work will have to be carried out using our own enterprises, since it will not be possible to transport this or that ship to the plant where it was built. Besides, we're talking about about restoring its former prestige. IN Soviet time was built at the Black Sea shipyards a large number of the largest and most complex ships. Now the palm in this regard has passed to factories in other regions.
And yet, one cannot help but admit that the creation of the Southern Center for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair is not even half the job. In addition to structural changes, there are many other things that need to be finalized. Due to controversial political issues, the Black Sea Fleet is now going through difficult times. better times and, as a result, loses a significant part of its combat potential. The organization of the Southern Center actually solves only the issue of maintenance and repair. Other important problems are the creation and modernization of supply points, basing points, etc. – it remains to be decided. The issue of constructing new facilities has already been repeatedly raised at the most different levels and, it seems, is now moving from the stage of talk to the stage of real action. However, here too there is every reason to assume certain problems. Base points, supply points, etc. should be located on the coast, and the shores of the Black Sea have long been a resort area. In addition, the location of a military facility implies some requirements for transport routes and parameters coastline. Because of this, the construction of new facilities in the most convenient places may conflict with the interests of third parties, for example, merchants involved in the tourism business. Their reaction to the military's plans can be very different.
It is worth noting that private interests should not be the reason for a serious change in plans regarding the country's security. Of course, most likely, some mechanism for reconciling the parties will have to be worked out, but the priority in this case should be the modernization of the naval infrastructure. Latest events in the Mediterranean region demand urgent action to improve the condition of the Black Sea Fleet. In addition, the complexity of the whole situation with it is increasing due to disputes surrounding the rental of facilities in Ukraine. So, due to all the problems, tasks and difficulties, the current work on creating the Southern Center for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair is actually only the first step of a long and long journey.