December the 15th, 2022 - The Croatian Treci Maj shipyard is set to complete a vessel which started being worked on fifteen whole years ago in Russia for another client.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian Treci Maj shipyard has contracted the completion of the construction of a massive chemical tanker with a capacity of 45,000 tonnes for the company Viterlef Management, and with this and other contracted jobs, capacities have been ensured for the next year, and new jobs are still being negotiated.

The above was conveyed by the assistant director for commercial affairs of Treci Maj, Sinisa Ostojic, saying that it is a vessel on which about 75 percent of the work has been completed, and which was started about fifteen years ago in Russia, but back then it was for another client.

The ship was of course not completed then, so the company Viterlef Management from the British Virgin Islands purchased it and intended to finish it in another Croatian shipyard, more specifically Brodotrogir, however, the ship wasn't completed in that shipyard either. Last year it was brought to the shipyard in Split (Brodosplit), and then to this shipyard in Rijeka.

The works on the vessel at the Croatian Treci Maj shipyard will include the installation of pipelines, the equipping of the tanks themselves, the finishing and equipping of the superstructure, and the final paint job, all within one single year.

Ostojic says that another vessel for the transport of bulk cargo, with a carrying capacity of 29,000 tonnes, is also being completed for a Canadian client at the Croatian Treci Maj shipyard. The construction of that huge vessel is now finally nearing the end, and they are also working on equipping a polar cruiser for the customer from Australia. Decisions are also being made about another similar ship.

The construction and partial fitting out of the first of three hulls for fifty-metre yachts for an Italian customer is now coming to an end, and for the third year in a row, the construction of cruiser hull parts continues, also being carried out for an Italian customer. When asked if this is enough for the survival and business of this shipyard, which is no stranger to economic woes, Ostojic replied that, based on the signed contracts, employment is guaranteed at the shipyard throughout 2023 and for the first half of 2024.

He added that, if the jobs that are being negotiated now, and some of which are in an advanced stage of negotiations, are successfully implemented, then employment within the Rijeka shipyard will be ensured for a longer period as well. As he said, discussions are also currently underway about the construction of new pontoons for Dok 11 at the Viktor Lenac Shipyard.

Negotiations are ongoing with a Cypriot company on the construction of two smaller ships for the delivery of liquefied natural gas, for the construction of two chemical tankers for a customer from Italy, and state guarantees will be required for both jobs should they be given the green light to go ahead, Ostojic concluded.

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If the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) gives up, it will be difficult to find another candidate for the ailing Croatian shipyards Uljanik (Pula) and 3 Maj (Rijeka) which is in the shipbuilding industry and is also a strong and respected player. Could a Chinese investment be on the cards?

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes on the 29th of April, 2019, after yesterday's meeting with Prime Minister Andrey Plenkovic and his government ministers, Hu Wenming, Chairman of the Board of China's largest shipbuilding company China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) confirmed that they are indeed moving towards serious consideration regarding the enfeebled Uljanik and 3 Maj shipyards, which have undergone months of turmoil.

''The prime minister gave us a very serious and detailed presentation of the whole situation,'' Wenming said, adding that they saw that these two shipyards were a very important topic for the Croatian public. "Not only did we bring people from our company - they're in charge of planning, we've already called on lawyers and investment banks, so we will outline what their views on the matter are after visiting the shipyards," Wenming stated.

With that, a key ''tour'' begins, because if CSIC ends up actually not being interested in putting its money into the situation, it will be a hugely difficult task to find another candidate in shipbuilding, which is a big player and has an interest in joining the European shipbuilding industry. Otherwise, this would be the first case of a Chinese takeover of a foreign shipbuilding company, so it is speculated that extensive calculations are being made, and of course whether they even want to have their first European shipyard is being considered. The CSIC is looking at the situation deeply and from all possible angles.

This event all began with the recent announcement of the arrival of the CSIC in Croatia with the aim of visiting the troubled shipyards in Pula and Rijeka. As was then announced, the CSIC chairman contacted Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang during his stay in the Republic of Croatia where he attended the summit "16 + 1" and after talking with the Croatian PM about the dire state of Croatian shipbuilding.

As things currently stand, the general belief is that the Chinese decision won't take long to come - it will be a simple and express "no" or "yes", while the third option, more specifically an unconditional "yes", will likely need to be waited for a little longer.

What the outcome of the potential Chinese presence in the Croatian shipbuilding industry is anyone's guess, and while some remain very suspicious of Chinese motives in Croatia in general, despite them already working on the long-awaited Pelješac bridge down in southern Dalmatia, whatever comes of their potential entry has got to be better than the current situation, especially for Uljanik.

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Click here for the original article by Suzana Varosanec for Poslovni Dnevnik

At the start of the enfeebled Uljanik's bigger problems, the Croatian Government's view was either restructuring or bankruptcy, and now there's no time to devise any sort of new solution.

As Marija Brnic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 28th of March, 2019, the government rejected the offer of strategic partner Brodosplit for Uljanik's restructuring, and thus, although the prime minister tried to avoid actually saying it, a process that would have a domino effect on all the companies operating within the Pula-based group system was launched.

The fact that there is no longer a strategic partner for Uljanik, which was the main argument for the postponement of the opening of bankruptcy proceedings in the previous proceedings on the 3 Maj shipyard and Uljanik's other companies, is changing the situation and it is now clear that no matter how much room the government initially left for some possible new solutions, the judge in Pazin doesn't have much of a choice today and will determine that the conditions for declaring bankruptcy for the Uljanik shipyard are now fulfilled. Such a decision automatically withdraws what the Rijeka court stated and opens bankruptcy proceedings for the 3 Maj shipyard.

All the speculations that there could be another possibility for Uljanik, for which Prime Minister Andrej Plenković left space in his statement, are empty stories, not only because of the fact that right at the very beginning of Uljanik's growing woes, the government's position was that the only possible scenarios for Uljanik's rescue were restructuring or bankruptcy, but also because of the fact that now, there is definitely no more time available to come up with a new solution for the burdened shipyard. When it comes to the question of the possibility of the continuation of shipbuilding in Pula and Rijeka as a whole, the key question remains the same - how many ships could buyers actually be found for, and then arrive other questions regarding financing through bankruptcy.

Two ships that are now in their final stages of construction in Pula were de facto detained over the past few days by the company's emotionally exhausted employees, and Uljanik's workers aren't finishing the job, because "other" workers, not from that shipyard, are working on Scenic's polar cruiser, while Jan de Nul is awaiting the government's decision to pay the requested difference of 22 million euros and to take over and finish it in Trieste, Italy.

From Pula, the request was for the completion of construction to be carried out in Uljanik, but the government didn't even discuss that yesterday, so it remains unknown as to whether the Ministry of Finance has worked to meet the necessary conditions, and if so, when it intends to pay any price differences and deal with the issue of the contracted vessels.

Although it's quite impossible to describe the situation surrounding Uljanik and Croatian shipbuilding as a whole as anything remotely positive, its rather lucky, analysts agree, that all of this happened and seems to have finally reached its peak in a year in which a surplus was recorded, but that doesn't minimise the issues Uljanik faces, nor does it even begin to confront the shipyard's overworked and well and truly underpaid employees.

The interesting thing which always happens in Croatia is the intertwining of business and politics. Just like with the messy Agrokor situation that has dominated the Croatian media for the past couple of years, there is always a political element, and if there isn't really one, someone will make you believe there is. The Istrian Democratic Party (IDS) has accused the Croatian Government of purposely trying to cause issues by using the Uljanik saga to its benefit, even claiming that the ''government's lack of action and indecisiveness'' is an attempt to destabilise Istria.

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Click here for the original article by Marija Brnic for Poslovni Dnevnik