Armón shipyard is the absolute leader in the national shipbuilding sector
The new owner of the Beiramar factory achieved 25 new ship constructions
Armón is the absolute leader among shipbuilders in Spain and Vigo is one of its strong points of activity with the factory it has in Beiramar (Armón Vigo) and the old Hijos de J. Barreras that it bought and converted into Astilleros Ría de Vigo S.A.
Of the 28 shipbuilding contracts won by national shipyards in the first half of the year, 25 correspond to the Asturian group distributed among its subsidiaries: five for Vigo and the rest for Gijón, Navia and the Naval Auxiliary firm in this same community. An order add must be added for the new Barreras, a 50-meter-long fishing vessel for Argentina on which work is already underway, although the statistics of the General Secretariat of Industry and SMEs still do not include it given the recent change of owners of the company.
The Spanish shipyards ended the first half of the year with an order portfolio made up of 64 ships and 35 are from Armón. This is the best figure recorded by the sector in the last five years. The Vigo shipyards have 13 contracts: four from Freire, seven from Armón and two from Cardama and one more that Nodosa writes down in Marín.
In any case, Galician private shipbuilding lost more weight in the first half due to the inactivity of its three largest shipyards: Barreras, Vulcano and also Metalships, which is dedicated to repairs and does not have any new construction. This is reflected in the report of the Ministry of Industry that places Galicia with 17 percent of the weighted activity -keel laying, launching and deliveries- compared to 43 percent of Asturias and 40 percent of the Basque Country.
The Vigo naval ship's order book is practically all international with ships under construction for Ireland, Argentina, New Zealand, Iceland, USA, Denmark or Senegal. Nodosa is building for the Galician company Canlemar and Armón for the CSIC with the construction of a new 85-meter-long oceanographic vessel that will be the largest vessel in the Spanish fishing research fleet.
For the Ministry of Industry, Factorías Vulcano continues to be among the private shipyards in Spain despite the fact that it was extinguished as a company two years ago. It is now owned by Grupo Marina Meridional and operates under the name of Astilleros San Enrique, although with the counter still at zero in terms of shipbuilding.
The Teis facilities resumed activity with a contract for the automotive industry - a climatic tunnel to test electric cars - and hopes to put into force in the short term the construction of an 80-meter-long fishing vessel worth 35 million for the PescaChile shipowner .
In the official statistics of the naval sector for the first semester also appears Hijos de J. Barreras, which was extinguished giving rise to Astilleros Ría de Vigo at the end of June. The fishing vessel on which he is working, a contract awarded by its new owner Armón, also does not appear in the report of the General Secretariat for Industry and SMEs that still includes the 'Evrima' cruise ship that was once hired by Ritz-Carlton to build in Barreras and which marked the end of the life of the centenary Vigo shipyard.
Armón will now give a new life to the facilities that it is already preparing with conditioning and cleaning tasks. The company is finalizing the procedures to start the demolition of the Aucosa ship. The work, which already has the permission of the Port Authority and the Urban Planning Department, will begin this month with the idea of unifying in the future the land occupied by Armón and Ría de Vigo, separated by this disused facility.
(Source: Atlantic Journal)