OREANDA-NEWS. December 11, 2012. One of the leaders of Ukraine’s agricultural market, agricultural company NIBULON, which had celebrated its 21 anniversary, reached the new stage of implementation of the national patriotic investment project to revive the Dnipro and the Southern Bug rivers as main transport waterways of the country.

Last Thursday, at Santierul Naval Constanta Shipyard (SNC) (Constanta, Romania), there was held a solemn keel laying ceremony of the largest and modern floating transshipment crane in the Black Sea basin which will be built by NIBULON’s order. A symbolic plate, indicating the beginning of vessel construction, was fastened to the future hull by NIBULON’s General Director, Hero of Ukraine Oleksiy Vadaturskyy and SNC Managing Director Radu Rusen.

According to Oleksiy Vadaturskyy, the floating crane that will be delivered in spring 2013 will allow NIBULON to transship up to 20 thousand tons of grain that is equivalent to Mykolayiv transshipment terminal capacity.

“At present in order to perform such amount of works we have to rent 7 inefficient floating cranes built in 50s. They satisfy us neither from technological nor economic point of view. In Ukraine there are still floating cranes with capacity of 2000 tons per day operating in the basin of Mykolayiv port and Odesa. Our floating crane can replace 10 typical cranes operating in the Ukrainian market. That is why we decided to build our own crane which will help us to reach our goal and to increase grain transportation up to 3 mln tons per year on the Dnipro and the Southern Bug Rivers”, mentioned Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.

During the keel laying ceremony Managing Director of SNC Shipyard Radu Rusen informed that the shipyard and its workers are proud of being able to perform such a responsible and important project for NIBULON and he promised to implement it according to the specified terms.

“This project is different from our previous ones. But its implementation coincides completely with our shipyard development strategy according to which we decided to build specialized vessels with an advanced level of complexity in case of absence of serial orders”, said R.Rusen.

According to R.Rusen, he and SNC team were impressed by the high level of NIBULON’s specialists who cooperate with the shipyard, by their experience in the shipbuilding sector, gained during implementation of construction projects of other NIBULON’s floating facilities and they were also amazed by financing and formation of the commercial component of the projects.

“We cooperated with different companies. But I can say with certainty that those relations we have developed together with NIBULON get the highest appraisal of professionalism”, announced R.Rusen.

SNC President Gheorghe Bosinceanu added the shipyard is seriously interested in continuation of cooperation with NIBULON. “And the current project will be implemented within the time limit”, assured he.

It is symbolic that Saint Nicolas floating crane, ordered by the company from Mykolayiv, the city of shipbuilders, was laid on Saint Nicholas Day according to the Gregorian calendar used by the Orthodox Church of Romania.

Oleksiy Vadaturskyy expressed regret that NIBULON could not entrust the project to Mykolayiv or other Ukrainian companies. Absolute majority of domestic shipyards do not have any technical or personnel possibilities to implement projects of such complexity, stresses NIBULON’s General Director. “Ukrainian shipbuilding companies stand idle, a frequent management change occurs, and their financial position is unsteady. Thus, they cannot perform difficult orders. The owners of Romanian shipyard are more interested in building vessels than the Ukrainian plants”, added O.Vadaturskyy.

According to him, the Romanian shipyard had competitors not only among Ukrainian shipyards but also among other European countries – Germany, Slovakia, and Poland. “In order not to loose the overall pace of our fleet construction and taking into account different factors – price and possibilities of different shipyards of Europe and Ukraine, we decided to build in Romania where price, quality and terms are suitable for us”, mentioned O.Vadaturskyy. According to him, the company had to make such a step because domestic shipbuilders were not interested in cooperation.

The floating crane project was designed by “Torola Design Group” company that has already developed projects of non-self-propelled vessels and tugs for NIBULON (NBL-90 and POSS-115 projects).The floating crane will operate on the high sea with wave height up to 1.5 m and wind force up to 20 m/s. 800 tons of metal will be spent on floating crane construction. It will be equipped with equipment produced by the world’s best manufacturers, namely Volvo Penta, Marine Interior, Schotel, Heinen& Hopman Engineering and about 60 other ones. The crane itself will be supplied by Liebherr. The grab capacity will comprise 60 tons per one lift. The crane will be productive enough to load Panamax vessels in the roads – one of the world’s largest vessels for cargo transportation.

While building such a vessel, NIBULON proved to be the world-class company”, stressed O.Vadaturskyy.

“We not only supply grain in the world markets and ensure food within UN World Food Program but we also create workplaces in Ukraine and Europe ordering construction of new modern vessels there. We are financed by the EBRD and first-class financial institutions, 60 leading suppliers of equipment provide us with their fitting and technologies. However, our floating crane will be constructed under the supervision of the Shipping Register of Ukraine and fly the flag of Ukraine”, noted NIBULON’s General Director.

The floating crane construction will complete the next stage of the national project to revive the Dnipro and the Southern Bug Rivers as main transport waterways of the country. This project is being implemented despite unjustified bureaucracy of the separate government bodies. Though the leaders of the government ordered to give the project the status of national, the appropriate decisions at the level of officials were not made. Overcoming of obstacles and implementation of difficult but important tasks both in the agrarian sector and shipbuilding, construction and logistics stress NIBULON’s leadership positions and the company’s desire to increase Ukraine’s prosperity.