Workload Builds At Revived Spanish Yard

As the new owner, controlling a network of yards in northern Spain, the Armon Group has directed a succession of high value-added orders to the acquired, rehabilitated premises at Beiramar, Vigo, taking the orderbook into 2025. Work is now under way on three newbuilds, comprising a survey ship, offshore patrol vessel, and freezer trawler.

Furthermore, through the demolition of a derelict factory between Armon’s established Vigo yard at Beiramar and the Barreras site, the group is on course to unifying operations and potentially creating a single shipbuilding entity, the largest in the Vigo estuary.

Constituting the first new contract in six years for the former Barreras premises, the delivery during August 2023 of a 50m fishing vessel for the Canadian-headquartered Cooke Group marked the first completion by the yard in its guise as Astilleros Ria de Vigo. Designed for scallop fishing with the Cooke subsidiary Wanchese Argentina, the vessel is said to rank as the largest newbuild factory freezer trawler in the Argentine fishery.

Activity at Ria de Vigo is now focused on construction of a 70m oceanographic ship for Iceland’s Marine & Freshwater Research Institute(MRFI), expected in service by the end of 2024, and a 70m freezer trawler, to be deployed by South Atlantic Squid, the joint venture of Galician fishing company Copemar and the Falkland Islands firm Beauchene Fishing. Dedicated to capturing and processing squid in Falklands waters, the vessel will replace Beauchene’s Baffin Bay, which suffered a fire and sank while undergoing maintenance at Vigo port in 2020.

The workload was augmented at the beginning of this year by a contract for an 82m offshore patrol vessel, set to become the largest in the fleet operated by Spain’s Civil Guard (SEMAR).

In addition, the former Barreras facility is fabricating blocks for the 80m oceanographic survey ship booked by Armon from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), which will be assembled and completed at the adjoining Armon yard. Handover is expected in 2025. Armon Vigo’s programme is distinguished by two other advanced research vessel newbuilds, one for New Zealand and the other, the 85m Odon de Buen, which is set to become the jewel in the crown of the Spanish scientific fleet.

Besides its expanded interests at Vigo, privately-owned Armon has four other shipyards and a steel cutting centre in northern Spain. In 2022, the group acquired the Barreras yard, with a long track record in ro-pax and ro-ro vessels, cargo ships and deep-sea fishing vessels, and which had entered the small cruise vessel market before becoming bankrupt.