Marine Plus S.A. was established by Mr. Dimitris Vranopoulos in London in 1988 and its subsidiary office was set up in Athens in 1990.
The first overseas trip was to Shanghai in 1991, where Mr. Vranopoulos participated in the Marintec exhibition. With the assistance of a translator sourced through the Greek embassy, standing in a small booth, and handing out business cards in English and Chinese to all exhibitors, the first contacts with Chinese yards were established. The first repair in China was booked in Lifeng S/Y with a vessel owned by A.M. Nomikos. Since then Marine Plus has managed to be granted the confidence and trust both by the major Shipyards in China and other areas of the world (S/E Asia, Middle East, Europe, Americas) as well as the Greek shipping community, as a provider of high quality maritime services worldwide.
Marine Plus has built up a very close, long-term and constructive cooperation with the best ship repair yards in the World. This has been a slow process which has taken years of commitment and hard work, a combination of strong interpersonal relationships with the senior management of these yards as well as a concentrated team effort to ensure each repair project undertaken is a success both for their Greek customers as well as the yards’ is representing. Thus,
it is conducting over 150 dry dock repairs annually, and has been granted the trust by more than 200 loyal customers from the Greek Shipping Community.
As Mr. Vranopoulos explains ‘’Our real job begins after we receive a firm booking, especially during the vessel’s repair at the yard, where key milestones are monitored as well as overall progress, maintaining agreed schedules, docking dates, sufficient labor for prompt execution of works etc. During this period regular contact with the attending Supt Eng as well as the head office is maintained. Monitoring and expediting work progress is greatly assisted by our associates who deals with working-level yard staff, whilst we also keep contact with senior yard management as and when their intervention is required.’’
What new parameters do you think will be set by 2030 and how ready is greek shipping to meet the new challenges that will arise so as to maintain and strengthen its role as a national asset for our country, but also as an important contributor in the international shipping scene?
The IMO has already set high decarbonisation goals for 2030, which at the present time, the market isn’t ready to meet.
The first ammonia fuel engine is set for testing in 2024, and we are not certain of whether any other alternative fuel
will be readily available and viable to meet these regulations. Until we have a clearer picture of what is the fuel of the future, it would be unwise for the IMO or the EU to impose any further regulations. The Greek owners are a diverse group themselves, spanning from small to very large ones. This was also proven with the recently enforced regulations regarding emissions.
Some have chosen to fit their fleets with Scrubbers, others have not. Each side has its own interest to look after and try to adjust for 2030.
The larger owners are still able to secure business and finance for any NB project they go ahead with.
The smaller owners however, can’t afford the risk of NB as they might end up with a vessel who’s resale value has dramatically dropped come 2030.
Strategy is key and many opt to purchase a second hand vessel that will be in its scrapping age when 2030 comes around.
Having said all that, Greek owners have proven over time that they have the skills and ability to adapt quickly to changing conditions, and to meet challenges that other shipping nations struggle with. I am confident that Greeks will find the way to handle decarbonisation regulation and survive.
As we all know, adverse conditions create opportunity, and that is a Greek speciality!!!
What are the main problems that face today the global shipbuilding and shiprepairing market? Do you think that there will be significant developments in the next decade that will change the way
of the shipbuilding procedures for the better? At the same time, what about the greek shipbuilding industry? Do you think it can be reborn and under what conditions?
For the owners and the newbuilding yards, not being able to identify the fuel that will meet regulation in 2030 is the biggest concern. However, due to the recent container ordering boom, an equally important problem is the lack of available berths.
Most state owned Chinese shipyards have filled up to 2024 and same goes for most yards in Korea. Some private yards, still have some early (end 2023/beg 2024) deliveries but those are going fast as well. Last but not least, the unprecedented commodity price hike, has led to significant increases in the vessel constructions cost, which in turn is making more conservative owners think twice.
The Greek Shipbuilding industry, unfortunately, can’t be competitive with its rivals in China, Japan and Korea,
as the high labor costs of workers would make the basic cost of any project even more expensive.
We could and should however turn our focus in the systematic construction of high quality yachts and leisure boats,
where we have the experience, and high quality construction is requested.
As far as shiprepair yards are concerned, currently restrictions imposed by the covid outbreak are a major concern, and are affecting productivity and by extension increasing yard cost. The problem especially for Chinese yards is the continual change in covid regulation in regards to vessel quarantine as a function of ports visited (can be as long as 90 days for high risk ports!!), and 4 week quarantine for attending superintendent engineers to come to China.
Going forward, as repair yards are labor intensive and therefore mainly concentrated in China (East) and Turkey (Europe/Med) where labor cost is low compared to other countries, the main concern is lack of new entry laborers and environmental restrictions (ban of grit blasting, complex rules for disposal of slops/sludges etc). When I started working with Chinese repair yards in 1991, there was an abundance of labor, and yards eg were begging for more steel works. Now the situation is completely reversed, and yards now actually prefer less steel works!!
Do you think that the shipping industry has been affected to a less- er extent than other industries due to the pandemic and now after the long pandemic period due to covid-19, the shipping industry
is ready for the great reset? Do you believe that there is a true momentum for the shipping industry out there?
Since the financial crisis in 2008, the shipping cycles have shortened. At the end of 2019 it was clear that the world economy was heading for a new supercycle,
which was evident by high consumer spending and healthy world GDP growth. This was after all the reason for the Container ordering boom.
The pandemic however placed the world economies on hold; and shipping, being the first industry to suffer and the last to recover from any such economic turmoil, could not be the exception.
It is important to see how the Russian invasion will end and what ripple effect it will have, but given that we are heading towards the end of the pandemic (hopefully), the fundamentals remain
strong for a great recovery and hopefully make up for the missed supercycle of 2020.
Do you agree that the shipbuilding sector faces fierce international competition from countries like china and south korea as well as the industry has also suffered from the absence of effective global trade rules and state supported over investment? Greek shipowners maintain their high position in the global order book. What is the penetration of marine plus in newbuildings or retrofits?
With your value added experience of all these years we would like you to make a forecast for the future of the shipbuilding industry (both european and global) for the next 10 years.
The shipbuilding scene has seen fierce competition over the last few decades. The high capacity and competitive pricing by Chinese yards have created issues for all other shipbuilding nations, and while the Chinese focused more in dry bulk carriers in the 1990s and 2000s, they have since evolved and progressed to compete in all sectors, from large LNG vessels and ULGCs to small handysize vessels and tug boats.
For Chinese yards, their main competitor is Korean shipyards. The price gap for the construction of similar vessels between China and Korea has dropped from 10% to 5%, with the Chinese remaining
the cheapest, and a similar trend can be witnessed in the price gap between Chinese and Japanese yards.
The Chinese yards were able to do so because of the State owned support that they receive, with the very large number of orders placed in state owned yards over the last 10 years that keeps them financially healthy and of no need to be as competitive as they once were. This trend is set to continue. If this will force the shipbuilding industry to seek a new, cheaper country to construct their vessels, remains to be seen.
In recent years, the main retrofit projects have been scrubbers and ballast water treatment system (BWTS) installation.
Scrubber retrofits:
Although scrubbers were not compulsory; there were many large Greek operators who decided to opt for such an investment. Marine Plus was actively involved with such projects mainly in China
and Middle East (Dubai Drydocks). We also installed scrubbers manufactured by Sunrui, whom we exclusively represent in the Greek market.
Such retrofits were often plagued by problems both during installation as well as once in operation, as many makers entered this market unprepared for the surge in demand within a short period (2018-2020). Lack of competent commissioning engineers / service engineers seemed to be one of the main problems.
Ballast water treatment system installation:
As far as BWMS installation is concerned, this is a compulsory
retrofit as per IMO regulations, and effectively by 2024 all sea going vessels (over a certain tonnage) will be fitted with IACS approved BWMS. This is a simpler retrofit, with most yards having achieved expertise in both prefabrication of pipe spools needed and actual installation. Again Marine Plus has extensive experience for such retrofit worldwide. In addition, Sunrui as maker of BWTS has a large share of the BWTS market in Greece both for newbuilds and retrofits.
The shipbuilding market, with the exception of the container segment, is currently at low orderbook levels compared to previous years, mainly due to the concern over lack of a clear solution for decarbonisation / alternative fuel. Once this is addressed, and of course depending on where the freight market will be at that time, there will be a surge in newbuilding activity.
The current low orderbook is assisting in sustaining a high/steady freight market, especially for dry. Greek owners will enter the new- building market at the right time, as they have proven that in most cases they can get the timing almost absolutely right!!, and timing is everything in shipping!!
* Managing Director Marine Plus