Koreans join Venezuela yard renewal

Recently, AHO Group, a South Korean shipbuilding consulting firm has signed a contract to rebuild and expand Astinave Shipyard in Venezuela with PDVSA Naval for some $600m. Sungdong Shipbuilding also from South Korea, inked a memorandum of understanding with AHO on providing shipyard construction and shipbuilding technology consultation and advice for the Astinave Shipyard renewal project.

Astinave Shipyard now covers an area of 200,000m² with about 20 year long history.

Under the renewal contract, the shipyard will be reconstructed in four stages by 2012 and it will be able to build Aframax class tankers and offshore plants, with a gross yard area of 1,400,000m², when the renewal work is done. Sungdong Shipbuilding has, it claims, unrivalled experience the on-land construction technology and has successfully launched a Capesize bulker and a 6,500-teu containership which were constructed purely on land.