Cebu teams up with Dutch shipbuilder

The Shipyard Association of Cebu (SAC) has entered into a technical agreement with the Dutch shipbuilder Damen Shipyards, Gorinchem, to construct four double-hulled oil tankers for delivery by 2008.

The partnership will allow the eight-member SAC to meet an expected surge in demand for double-hulled tankers by April 2008, the government’s deadline for all tankers to be double-hulled vessels. SAC?s president, Arthur Uy, who owns Cebu-based Colorado Shipyard Corp., said the standard delivery time for double-hulled tankers with deadweight of 3,750 DWT was 16 months. He said SAC would be ready to deliver the first vessel in 16 months with subsequent deliveries of one tanker every five months.

Derk M. Herkemij, Damen’s sales manager for Asia Pacific, said each double-hulled tanker would cost between $13 million and $16 million. The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships is the main regulation requiring tankers worldwide to be double-hulled by 2008, and all inter-island tankers to follow suit by 2015. The Philippines wants to follow the 2008 deadline for its 21 inter-island tankers. The urgency was partly spurred on by the single-hulled ?Solar I? accident off Guimaras last August which resulted in a huge oil spill.

Human error was seen as a major factor in the accident and resulting spill, not the lack of a second hull, but maritime authorities and shipping companies have since agreed that the extra security provided by double-hulled and double-bottomed tankers would be worth the $10 million to $15 million investment per vessel.