Business Shipping

Colombo Dockyard moving full steam ahead

The achievemen-ts in shipbuilding sector are remarkable and encouraging. In 2006/2007 CDL delivered three Tug Boats for A.A. Turki Corporation (ATCO) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This was an immediate result of the good work performed by CDL in two previous projects of building aluminium hull Crew Boats for Lamnalco United Arab Emirates and Zamil Operations and Maintenance Company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Yet another significant achievement is the contract for the 35 m Fisheries Protection Craft (FPC) and the 40 m

 Fisheries Protection Vessels (FPV) for the Maldives National Defence Force. The 35 m FPC was delivered recently and the 40 m FPV is scheduled for delivery by November 2007.

However, the biggest breakthrough in the efforts of CDL was the securing of four units of Anchor Handling Tug Supply Vessels for Greatship India Limited (GIL), a subsidiary of Great Eastern Shipping Company of India and the two units of 250 passenger cum 100 Ton Cargo Vessels for the Union Territory of Lakshadweep of India.

The feedbacks we have received from our overseas clients are overwhelming and CDL has now made its name in the world shipbuilding market as a competitive and reputed shipbuilder.

In the ship repair sector CDL has been predominantly servicing the regional fleet, making its mark as a favoured repair centre for fast turnaround and quality customised repairs.

CDL has been able to attract key Indian players such as Shipping Corporation of India, Dredging Corporation of India, Mercator Line Ltd., Sanmar Shipping Ltd., TCI Shipping and GATI in the recent past.

Currently the yard is busy with tanker D.S. Thapa owned by Shipping Corporation of India, Dredging Corporation of India owned dredge DCI XV, Irano-hind Shipping owned MV. Mir Damand and MV. Yong Wang a Chinese owned vessel among many other vessels.

Yard’s steel processing capacity, auxiliary facilities and other facilities such as cranage have been augmented to meet the increasing production demands in both shipbuilding and the repair sectors.

Colombo Dockyard celebrated its 33rd anniversary since its inception in 1974, has been recognised as a full service ship repair and shipbuilding centre operates in joint collaboration with Onomichi Dockyard Co. Ltd. Japan.

CDL operates three repair docks up to 125,000 DWT capacity and with the newly converted building dock (107 metre x 19 meters) and building slip way.

CFB converts into a research body

Sri Lanka is planning to revamp the Central Freight Bureau (CFB), a State agency previously controlled the shipping business, into a research body, its officials said.

The new organisation hopes to provide research material with commercial value to the shipping community, which is a timely need, its one of the officials said.

This Institute would help shippers and shipping agents to make their business more efficient and profitable. The CFB’s role weakened and it lost its regulatory powers with the liberalisation of shipping that came with changing economic and political conditions. This was announced at a meeting on revamping of the CFB.

This new organisation would make use of the wealth of data available with the bureau and do commercially-oriented research to help businesses.

The CFB has now tied up with the Sri Jayawardenepura University, which would do the research, he added.

At present the CFB makes only limited use of data available with the bureau, which puts out monthly and annual reports of cargo and vessel movements in the Colombo Port. Officials said the CFB’s new name had not yet been decided nor the full range of its functions.

In the future, the CFB would focus on helping the trade by publishing updated export data, disseminate freight rates, monitor export trends to various markets, and give policy advice to the government.

The CFB was set up in 1973 and its original role was the allocation of cargo to the limited number of ships with the national shipping line.

HHS

Marine combination and congestion viewed

Global container terminal operating companies have faced strong criticism from their ocean carrier customers for most of this year as a combination of marine and landside congestion has led to deteriorating levels of service.

Moreover, with many ocean carriers adding bigger ships the need for even more terminal capacity has become greater as individual box exchanges have picked up.

It is certainly a big challenge to the terminal operators, especially when you consider the remarkable sustained growth on certain trade lanes in 2007.

For example, on the booming Far East/Europe trade, cargo volumes grew more than 20per cent in the period up to August, with many analysts now predicting that the peak shipping season will extend into 2008.

Although these robust rates of growth are not being repeated in all trades - the Far East/US west coast route, for instance, is barely attaining a 7per cent annualised increase currently - overall optimism is fuelling the order book for large ships.

Global Terminal

Lanka Hydraulic Institute to tap more foreign port projects

Shanaaz Carina

Lanka Hydraulic Institute (LHI) will be providing impetus to the economic development of Sri Lanka. LHI is a consultancy firm, which imparts advise on coastal engineering, urban water and water resources.

As a part of consultancy they engage in Field Investigation, Mathematical and Physical Model Studies and most of the testing are done in their Hydraulics Laboratory.

LHI is a project oriented unique in the region and has won the ISO 9000 certificate from Switzerland mainly because of their quality management. ‘We are an excellent outsource for Hydraulic modelling and field measurements in the region and beyond’ said CEO of LHI Malith Mendis.

LHI was engaged in several projects in Sri Lanka and overseas. They have done 10 projects overseas and projects include the modelling of Song Do beach in Korea, a drainage project in Maldives for USAID and modeling Ellaidhoo Island in Maldives for John Keells.

“We are expecting more foreign projects during the year ahead.

“We have done many Sri Lankan projects. Projects in designing the Hambantota harbour, Panadura Fishing Harbour, Colombo South Harbour Development Project, Consultancy services for Walawe River, Galle Development project are few of their services.

LHI also was involved in many rehabilitation and improvement projects of three fishery harbours in Sri Lanka during Tsunami, a spokesman said.”

LHI is closely affiliated to the Moratuwa university and the Peradeniya university, when implementing projects. And in long term they plan to develop their own software industry.

‘We are confident that we will be able to run the leading hydraulics laboratory and consultancy in the region’, said the CEO Malith Mendis. LHI is becoming one of the leading consultants in Sri Lanka as well as abroad.

Clients have access to LHI project folder through webcam technology so that they could download reports and documents easily, the a press release said.