Production and Operation Buoy up

Wang Zhihui

Since the beginning of this year,sporadic outbreaks have occurred in many parts of China, especially in Shanghai in March and April, which has greatly affected the production and operation of enterprises. Under this situation, China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) made great efforts to plan strategies, and led CSSC people to overcome difficulties. On the basis of effective prevention and control of the epidemic, it steadily promoted production and operation, and achieved good results in a reversal fashion.As of May 22, CSSC had received orders of 9.2 million DWT, about 80 billion yuan, up 9.5% year on year;75 ships were delivered, amounting to 5.7 million DWT, 41% of the annual delivery target, laying a solid foundation for the “double over half” in the second quarter.

Scientific arrangements for steady growth

On April 29, CSSC held an economic operation analysis meeting for the first quarter of 2022 to accurately evaluate the current situation and deploy the next stage of work. The meeting pointed out that all departments and member units of the group headquarters should be proactive and impose pressure on its own, further stabilize growth,strengthen management, consummate the system and prevent risks, and take more effective measures to minimize the impact of the epidemic on scientific research, production and operation. Under the strong leadership of the CSSC Leading Party Group, all departments and member units of the CSSC headquarters were united as one, grasped epidemic prevention and control and adhered to both production and operation, strove to contribute to maintaining growth and stabilizing growth. The relevant departments of the group headquarters and the majority of shipbuilding enterprises further strengthened market development,strove to be aggressive, did everything possible to receive more orders, and promoted the operation of the group company to go against the trend.

Not long ago, CSSC’s DSIC,together with CSTC and China Merchants Energy Shipping, a subsidiary of China Merchants Group,signed a cloud construction contract for 2+2 175,000 m3 LNG carriers in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Dalian and Beijing. On April 28, Hudong Zhonghua and CSTC, as the joint seller,signed the construction contract of six 174,000 m3 LNG carriers with the buyer’s representative NYK. The total value of the six LNG vessels signed this time reached more than 8 billion yuan, once again breaking the record for the largest one-time contract value for LNG vessels set at the beginning of this year. CSSC Beihai Shipbuilding and CSTC as the joint seller signed a contract with Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines on building a 120,000-ton floating dock and a 93,500-ton floating dock. The two floating docks signed will be used to repair and retrofit the two cruise fleets, which will become one of the world's largest floating docks and meet the docking requirements of the world's largest luxury cruise ships.

In January-May this year,CSSC undertook orders of about 10 million DWT civilian shipbuilding and offshore engineering, with a total amount of more than 80 billion yuan,completing the annual target task ahead of schedule, the amount of orders increased by 16% YOY, and the repair load ratio reached 0.62.It is worth mentioning that the order product structure undertaken by CSSC continues to move to the high end. By the amount, the orders of high-end ships accounted for 86%, up 8% YOY, among which dual-fuel ships accounted for 86%, up 52% YOY.

Fix on goals and take a combination of measures to ensure production

At the beginning of this year, CSSC made clear the annual production task target of shipbuilding and offshore engineering business, and issued the delivery plan and large node plan of each shipyard.To better achieve the annual production task and objectives, CSSC developed a strategic operation control system and put it online, timely grasped the operation and production performance of the group company, implemented Kanban management,dynamic deviation correction; exercised management over key enterprises, major / key products and key matters listed in the “triple key list” of the corporate shipbuilding and offshore engineering business, increased the level of attention and strengthened management and control, and timely grasped dynamic conditions and supervised progress. They set up the expert teams for the group company large cruise ships, large container ships and other key projects, to provide guidance and assistance for the smooth progress of the projects;gave full play to the overall advantages of the group company, established the benchmarking support mechanism between enterprises, and improved the overall construction capacity and level of the group company.

This year, Hudong Zhonghua and Jiangnan Shipbuilding delivered two 15000TEU and one 15000TEU dual fuel powered super large container ship respectively, further consolidated the market position of the group company in this field. DSIC delivered the world's first LNG dualfuel diesel/VLCC “Yuan Rui Yang”, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding delivered the world's first Newcastle dual-fuel powered bulk carrier “Bi Xi Shan”, it marks the group's breakthrough in the field of large clean energy powered shipbuilding technology. The 600Passenger / 4500 m lane luxury passenger Ro-Ro ship No.2 built by CSSC Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI) for the Danish DFDS shipping company was successfully delivered, building an international high-end product brand. The successful delivery of the Fast4Ward “generalpurpose” FPSO No.3 for Swiss SBM further consolidated the market position of high-end marine engineering equipment. In addition, first ships of GSI and DSIC 16000TEU super large container ships, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding 7000TEU and Beihai Shipbuilding 5500TEU container ships realized continuous kickoff.

It is worth mentioning that all three shipbuilding companies in Shanghai delivered their ships at first time during the production resumption, and the 209,000 ton LNG dual fueled bulk carrier built by Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding was successfully delivered to the Singapore shipowner via“cloud delivery”; Jiangnan Shipbuilding delivered the 99,000 m3 type-B VLEC with the largest cabin capacity;Hudong Zhonghua delivered an 80,000 m3 LNG carrier with the world's largest shallow water channel and China's first river-sea combined transport. Since the resumption of work and production at the end of April, the three shipbuilding enterprises in Shanghai have achieved 16 large nodes,including the laying-down of 4 ships, flooring of 3 ships,undocking of 6 ships and sea trial of 3 ships. With the lockdown lift in Shanghai, the operation and production of shipbuilding and offshore engineering enterprises are about to get on the right track. They will continue to coordinate the epidemic prevention and control and the resumption of work and production to ensure the full completion of the annual production and operation targets and tasks.

During the January-May period, CSSC delivered 81 new ships with 6 million deadweight tons, completing 41.5%and 42% of the annual plan, respectively, and laying a good foundation for the completion of the annual targets.