Dung Quat Industrial Shipbuilding Company (DQS) has recently held a steel-cutting ceremony for the first of four 5,000 DWT multi-purpose vessels ordered by Handelskade, a Dutch company. According to Mr. Nguyen Hong Chien, DQS’s Vice President, the series of four vessels will be built to the design specifications of DQS-01, DQS-02, DQS-03, and DQS-04. These vessels will have an overall length of 99.96 meters, a breadth of 13.6 meters, a depth of 6.80 meters, and a designed draft of 5.20 meters.
The vessels are designed by CMT ENGINEERING (Romania) and classified by RINA (Italy). This marks a significant milestone for the Dung Quat Shipyard, as it is their first new contract in decades. DQS, a subsidiary of the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, was established in 2006. As part of the restructuring of Vinashin, DQS was transferred to the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) in July 2010. Currently, approximately 1,200 people are employed at the shipyard.
Photo: Signing ceremony for DQS’s new order.
When it was first constructed, the Dung Quat Shipyard was envisioned to be a “giant” in the industry, tasked with propelling Vietnam into the ranks of regional and global shipbuilding powerhouses. The shipyard was designed with a Phase I capacity of approximately 600,000 tons of ships per year, and Phase II aimed to increase this capacity to 1.1 million tons annually.
However, the global economic crisis and missteps by Vinashin led to a challenging situation for DQS when it was transferred to PetroVietnam in 2010. Since then, PetroVietnam has restructured the shipyard to maintain and resume its operations. PetroVietnam has invested 1,915 billion VND in charter capital and provided support of nearly 3,500 billion VND to repay debts to banks. Under PetroVietnam’s management, DQS has undertaken a range of ship conversions, newbuildings, and repairs for both domestic and foreign vessels.
In 2023, the shipyard was among the 12 loss-making and underperforming projects in the industrial and trade sector that the government directed the Ministry of Industry and Trade to actively resolve. PetroVietnam has proposed the bankruptcy of the Dung Quat Shipyard, accepting a loss of 5,000 billion VND.
The new ship order is a positive development for the shipyard. After a gap of 13 years since the last vessel was built at DQS, the company has secured a contract to build four 5,000 DWT container ships powered by clean energy – hydrogen.
Cannot protract the processing of Dung Quat Shipbuilding Company
On the morning of March 7th, leading the meeting of the Steering Committee for dealing with existing shortcomings and inefficiencies of certain projects and enterprises in the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai, Head of the Steering Committee, expressed his opinion on the handling of Dung Quat Shipbuilding Industry One Member Limited Liability Company (DQS). He emphasized that the resolution process cannot be prolonged, as it would delay the reporting progress to the Politburo. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure a clear understanding of the procedural steps and solutions.
