St. Petersburg newspaper "Fontanka.ru" published the material Leo Godovannik "Is still a shock. After the sanctions, the shipyards are calm only about icebreakers. Engines from China, electronics from Aurora, dollars and euros in suitcases, and processors are a big question. Fontanka has found out the current prospects of Russian civil shipbuilding."
The Norwegian Sea trawler of the KMT01 project, built at the Vyborg Shipyard JSC (as part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation JSC) for the Arkhangelsk Trawl Fleet JSC, 2021 (from) the United Shipbuilding Corporation JSC
The main supplies from the EU countries for the construction of our civil vessels are high-power engines and processors. The former can be replaced in China, the prospect of replacing the latter is still unclear. This was told in more detail by the Deputy General Director of JSC "Central Research Institute of the Marine Fleet" Alexander Buyanov:
- Russian shipyards receive almost all marine engines for civil shipbuilding from Europe. These are diesel generators, to which there is practically no alternative. We produce analogues of small power, but when we talk about power from a megawatt, there are quite a few options.
- Will it have to be created from scratch?
- Not only that. A striking feature of Russian manufacturers of marine equipment is the complete lack of modern service. The Russian manufacturer supplies some equipment to the shipyard, it is installed, but sooner or later something breaks. Here it turns out that the manufacturer does not provide either repairs or the supply of spare parts, not that to the main ports of the world - to Russian ports! Their principle is: broken - bring it - we'll fix it. Any shipowner knows: it is impossible to imagine the equipment, for example, of the Finnish shipbuilding concern Wärtsilä without uninterrupted supply of spare parts to most ports of the world. In Russia now, apparently, there will be neither the ship equipment of this company, nor its service.
- And what about the power equipment for nuclear icebreakers?
- Nuclear reactors, turbo generators, electric motors and even shafts to which rotation is transmitted are made in Russia, there are no problems here - we practically do not depend on foreign manufacturers in the production of icebreakers. But there are also supplies of components.
- And where do the engines on our ships come from?
- Mainly Finnish Wärtsilä, German MAN, in third place Chinese WinGD.
- Can WinGD completely replace the first two, which, as I understand it, will not give us anything in the foreseeable future?
- I think so. In fact, there are fully localized technologies of the Swiss Sulzer and Wärtsilä. They make large deliveries to the international market, WinGD engines are put on container ships and large bulk carriers.
- Now our shipbuilding will depend on China?
- I wouldn't put the question like that. After all, we are living for the third day in new conditions - we must wait. Moreover, Russia is too large a segment of the global shipbuilding industry.
- Probably, there will be problems with the ship's electronics?
- On icebreakers, it is all domestic - from the NGO "Aurora". This electronics is of quite decent quality, but the question is in the volume and scale of supplies. The big question is whether Aurora will cope with deliveries to all vessels of Russia.
- But we don't know how to make microchips.
- They don't know how. AMD and Intel refused to supply them, which will hit shipbuilding as well as everyone else. After all, the ship's control system is essentially the same personal computer. What could be the way out... Honestly, I don't know, and my colleagues don't know. Now everyone is in shock. There are, of course, Russian Elbrus technologies that supply chips to military and state institutions, but as far as I've heard, there are a lot of complaints.
- A lot depends on South Korea at the Zvezda plant built by Rosneft in Bolshoy Kamen. It looks like the Koreans will join the refusal of supplies.
- It's sad. With their participation, Zvezda is building high-ice class gas carriers and tankers for Novatek and Rosneft projects in the Arctic. Taking into account these plans, forecasts of gas and oil production and export of their derivatives are being made. If there are no gas carriers and tankers, the chain collapses.
There is no full understanding of the scale of the impact of foreign sanctions on Russian shipbuilding yet. But the shipyards, which are part of the state United Shipbuilding Corporation, will have to forget about foreign currency accounts. This was told by the head of the practice of sanctions law and compliance of the Pen&Paper Bar AssociationSergey Glandin:
- It is too early to sum up the results of sanctions against Russian shipbuilding. Do you know the stages of a person's reaction to stress? Shock, denial, depression, bargaining, acceptance. We are now in a stage of shock, sanctions are just being introduced, it is not entirely clear what exactly they are, new sanctions will appear for a few more days. I think by the end of the week, the current stage of this process will be completed, and we will come to the transition from depression to acceptance - then much will become clearer.
- The first sanctions against the main owner of Russian shipyards - the state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation - appeared back in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea.
- That's right, but now Promsvyazbank, where most of the defense-related shipyards are serviced, has been subjected to blocking sanctions. Clients of this bank who have foreign currency accounts will not be able to use them. Promsvyazbank can now work only with rubles, and those who want to operate with currency will have to open accounts in international banking groups - in Raiffeisen or Uni-credit, for example.
Promsvyazbank serves nine large industrial enterprises of the region, one way or another related to shipbuilding, including military orientation:
FSUE "Morozov Plant"
FSUE "Krylovsky SSC"
JSC "Baltic Plant"
Vyborg Shipbuilding Plant PJSC
JSC "KB Arsenal"
PJSC "SZ "Severnaya Verf"
Kirov-Energomash Plant JSC
JSC "MZ Arsenal"
SZRC East Kazakhstan Region "Almaz-Antey"
- Will USC enterprises be able to do this?
- Not anymore. This is only for those who have not been sanctioned.
- But we have all shipbuilding either at USC or at Rosneft. Both are under sanctions.
- Rosneft is still under sectoral sanctions. For example, it is prohibited from long-term borrowings with a maturity of more than 14 days. Other sanctions against Rosneft do not apply to shipbuilding, they relate to the development of gas and oil fields beyond the Arctic Circle. It is forbidden to supply equipment from the USA and the European Union there. And there are no blocking sanctions yet, which means that currency accounts are working as usual.
- Did I understand you correctly: USC member companies cannot open foreign currency accounts anywhere at all?
"That's right. They will be sent to any European or American bank.
- And what will happen to the money that they have now in foreign currency accounts?
- All funds are blocked in foreign banks. They are there, but the owners cannot manage them until the sanctions are over. And the owners of foreign currency accounts in the same Promsvyazbank will have to convert all currency into rubles. Another option is to come and pick up suitcases of cash euros or dollars. They will not be able to make any other bank currency transactions. Any attempt at a currency transfer will result in the freezing of the corresponding amount by an American or European correspondent bank.
Lev is a yearling for "Fontanka.ru"