Swan Defence and Heavy Industries Ltd (SDHI), India’s largest shipbuilding and heavy fabrication company by capacity, and the Netherlands based Royal IHC are weighing plans to leverage respective strengths for sub-sea, offshore construction and specialised vessels.
Confirming the plans, IHC said in a LinkedIn post that “it plays to the strengths of Swan Defence and Heavy Industries as owner and operator of the largest shipyard in India which has been fully refurbished and to Royal IHC with a solid track record of bespoke vessels with fully integrated, highly efficient mission equipment”.
“The combination of readily available capacity at the SDHI shipyard in combination with the technological and project execution support of Royal IHC was well received by the market,” Royal IHC, the world’s largest dredger builder, wrote in the LinkedIn post.
Swan Defence and Heavy Industries and Royal IHC showcased their ‘make in India’ collaboration at the recently concluded NOR-Shipping Exhibition in Oslo.
IHC is currently lending technology and design support to Cochin Shipyard Ltd for constructing a so-called trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHDs) having a hopper capacity of 12,000 cubic metres for state-owned Dredging Corporation of India Ltd (DCI), costing more than ₹800 crore. TSHDs are used to maintain the channel of ports.
This will be the first ‘Beagle 12’ TSHD of 12,000 cubic metre capacity designed by IHC to be built anywhere in the world. The new generation TSHD’s of IHC under the ‘Beagle’ series are highly popular and known to be efficient and highly reliable dredgers.
Mumbai-listed Swan Defence and Heavy Industries, the entity that runs the shipyard at Pipavav in Gujarat, has signed a memorandum of understanding with state-run defence shipbuilder Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd (GRSE) to collaborate on a non-exclusive basis for the construction of commercial vessels and offshore structures, with a focus on global customers and national maritime interests.
Swan Defence and Heavy Industries is yet to sign shipbuilding orders after re-starting operations late last year under a new management, warding off bankruptcy.
