HSL completes repair on two foreign ships within a week

Hindustan Shipyard Limited, a Visakhapatnam-based Ministry of Defence Enterprise based in Visakhapatnam has entered into the niche market of export orders by docking a pipe-laying vessel along with another foreign supply vessel 'Go Sirus' for repairs.

HSL, a premier shipbuilding yard set up here in 1941 is expected to get high-value orders from the Ministry of Defence with process on to take up construction of five Fleet Support Vessels. The contract is expected to be signed by the third quarter of the financial year. The yard is also confident of getting orders worth Rs.20,000 crore in the next five years, HS: Chairman and Managing Director Commodore Hemant Khatri told Bizz Buzz in a recent interview.

According to a company spokesperson, the pipe-laying vessel named Lay Vessel North Ocean LV105 is of a US firm Mcdermott, which is used for deep-sea pipe-laying with electric propulsion. It is the largest to be docked at 17,000 tonne weight. Such types of ships are only three in the world. Also, the docking of this vessel needed special skill sets due to the layout of heavy machinery on the ship having a draft of 6.7 meters. The dock block clearance was only 200 mm. All this entailed designing a new docking plan.

The repairs to both these foreign vessels have been completed in seven days by working continuously round the clock, even on weekends and festival holidays, thus setting a new benchmark in ship repairs by HSL. This will earn HSL revenue in foreign exchange (US Dollars). The CMD said in a release that HSL aims to diversify into many commercial orders for ship repairs including import business for MRO in repairs.