The shipyards of Vigo, in the lead with a score of new ships
The slipways of the bay account for 40% of the state's shipbuilding activity with fishing vessels, oceanographic vessels, patrol boats, ferries, and maintenance vessels
Vigo's shipyards have about twenty shipbuilding contracts in force, the highest figure in recent years that places them as the most productive in the national territory. The Ministry of Industry report that has just been public, with 2023 last quarter data, positions Vigo’s order book (including Nodosa in Marín) as the largest, with 39 percent of the country and most of them are oceanographic and fishing. They are followed by the Asturians with 37 percent and those from the Basque Country with 23 percent.
Galician activity will be fattened in the coming months, since there are contracts formalized in recent weeks not included in this official statistic, where more than 90 percent are for foreign clients.
The two factories that Armón Group has in Beiramar add up to eight constructions. Ría de Vigo (formerly Hijos de J. Barreras) is making an oceanographic vessel for the Iceland Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, a fishing vessel for Vigo company Copemar and a patrol boat for the Civil Guard, to which a ferry for French Polynesia will be added, which has already been awarded and will start in the first half of this year.
On the other hand, Armón centralises its activity in high value-added oceanographic vessels. The largest one and one of the most advanced in the world, the Spanish IEO-CSIC will have, is being built – another one for the Netherlands Institute for Marine Research and has two other research ships in the pipeline for public bodies in New Zealand and the Azores.
Freire Shipyards also has four constructions going on, two oceanographic for France – for the Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer) – and for the United States – for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) – as well as a fishing trawler for a Canadian shipowner and a maintenance vessel for the main marine contractor in the United Kingdom, Briggs Marine.
Cardama recently won a contract for two patrol boats for the Uruguayan Navy and has two other international orders, one of them reactivated after years of blockage.
Nodosa, in Marín, is simultaneously working on three fishing boat constructions, two for companies owned by Pescapuerta and Pereira Vigo shipowners that operate in the Malvinas Islands, and another one for a fishing company in New Zealand.
The shipyards reinforce their activity with several repairing and maintenance works, a market niche on which Metalships is focused, the other major benchmark in shipbuilding in Vigo that currently has no new constructions. Nor did San Enrique (formerly Factorías Vulcano), which focused on naval repair with several fishing boats and an oceanographic vessel in its portfolio.
(Source: Atlántico Diario)