New shipyard to open in province of Santa Fe

Although it has been a bad year for the Hidrovía waterway due to the impact of the global crisis, some companies have continued to take the long-term view and have pushed ahead with sizeable investments. One of these is Ultrapetrol, which on December 15 will be inaugurating a state-of-the-art shipyard in the neighbourhood of Alvear, in the province of Santa Fe.
The new undertaking, the Punta Alvear Shipyard, has required an initial investment of some US$55 million, between infrastructure and start-up working capital, and two months after it opens it will be producing barges for river traffic at the rate of one a week.
At a meeting with the Herald, Ultrapetrol director, Jorge Alvarez, pointed out that this will be the most modern shipyard of its kind in Latin America and the first to produce barges in series, thus reducing the costs of the barges by a substantial amount when compared to current building standards in Argentina.
The new vessels, both tank barges and those for dry bulk products are being built to strict international standards and will meet MARPOL standards in the case of the tank barges and will also be certified by the Argentine Coast Guard.
Despite the dramatic drop in traffic on the Hidrovía this year due to a number of factors such as the drought, farm strikes and the drop in demand for minerals exported by Bolivia with the consequent drop in freight rates, Alvarez is optimistic that the economic upturn is already here and the situation will gradually improve.
Until now most of the 1,700 barges that operate on the Hidrovía are second-hand barges that were imported from the United States. Alvarez points out that as these were designed for traffic on the Mississippi River, they are only capable of carrying 1,500 tons, way below the 2,500-ton capacity that barges should have ideally to operate on the Hidrovía.
“All the barges to be built at the shipyard will have a carrying capacity of 2,500 tons,” Alvarez said, adding, “this will have the added effect of increasing shipment loads and lowering freight rates.”
“This had become a vicious circle as up to now nobody had invested enough to build barges on a large scale with the latest technology, so much so that in the last two years only 14 barges have been built in the country.”
Although the initial production rate at the shipyard will be one a week, the executive considered that as demand picks up this rate could rise to two a week with the addition of extra shifts. Besides, the shipyard will also be expanding into the building of medium-sized vessels such as offshore support vessels and other types of vessels.
On the labour front, the company has signed a an advanced agreement with the SAON naval workers union whereby the 200 people working at the yard have accepted a productivity-based collective wage agreement.
Alvarez also emphasized that the company is making a huge effort to resucitate the Argentine Merchant Navy and as part of this policy has in recent times added five tankers to its fleet for coastal fuel transport, all operating under the Argentine flag, while the tugs and barges operated by the company are also Argentine-flagged.
Besides having the most powerful tug (8,300BHP) on the river — the Zonda I, launched at Tandanor this year —  the company is also implementing the latest navigation systems on its vessels: Channel ECDIS, AIS & Course Trajectory, or CEACT, that will substantially “ improve the efficiency in navigation and fuel saving.