Turkey makes start on mega shipyard

Groundbreaking for the soon-to-be world’s second-largest shipyard, to be constructed in the Yumurtalık Free Trade Zone in Adana, will take place in July this year. Bülent Uzunsa?, board chairman of Hay Shipbuilding and Maintenance & Repairs Inc. (HGS), said their preparations were in their last stages and that they had been granted permission to move forward with the investment, according to a statement given to the Anatolia news agency,

Uzunsa? explained that they had secured 550 million euros in credit from Germany for the first leg of the construction, which will be built on an 800,000m2 area in the Yumurtalık Free Trade Zone. The HGS Shipyard will be Turkey’s largest and the world’s second biggest such facility and the estimated completion date is June 2009 and it will employ 7,000 in the first unit.

Work on the second unit will start soon afterwards, constructing 30,000 to 70,000 dwt ships in the first unit and 200,000 to 300,000 dwt vessels in the second. The total annual output will be 35 ships. HGS has concluded a license agreement with MAN Diesel A/S for the production of two-cycle engines and they would build a plant for engine assembly on the shipyard premises. The company was also successful in securing a 230 million Euro loan for the establishment of the engine factory.

The engine factory is expected to have the ability to produce 120 engines annually of between 5,000 to 60,000-KW output in a 115,000m2 factory. HGS is planning to open the engine factory in 2009 and will not only supply engines for their own shipyard but also shipbuilders in Turkey, the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean as the only authorized producer and dealer of MAN Diesel engines in the region.