The Western Marine Shipyard Ltd has secured orders for building two oil tankers for Al Rashid Shipping Ltd, a UAE-based shipping company. The oil tankers will have 6500 DWT (dead weight tonnage) carrying capacity and will cost USD 6.8 million in total.
Western Marine Shipyard's managing director Sakhawat Hossain and Ahmed Al Marzuki of Al Rashid Shipping Ltd signed the contract recently at the Chattogram office of the WMShL. In 2007, Western Marine exported a landing craft to the same company.
Recently, the UAE shipping company has also handed over an order for one offshore support vessel to the WMShL.
A statement of the shipbuilder, the pioneer shipbuilder of the country, said each of the newly-ordered vessels will be 109.65 meter long, 18.00 meter broad and 8.40 meter deep. The vessels will be built under French class BV and the vessels' main engines and other machines will be imported from Japanese and European makers.
The landing craft, namely Ajman Trans, delivered to the company in November 2017, was the first ship export to a Middle East country from Bangladesh.
This was also the 43rd ship exported from Bangladesh so far and the 32nd ship exported by Western Marine.
Currently, Western Marine holds orders for 42 ships from the local and foreign buyers.
Managing Director Hossain said they entered the Middle East shipping market in 2017 and now they are receiving more orders from them. They will secure still more orders from the market in future, he said.
Chairman of Western Marine Saiful Islam said ship building can play an important role in the SDG-2030 goal with favourable support from the government. The main challenge for the sector is arranging working capital for projects. If the banks come forward with financial support the sector can secure more orders from local and foreign buyers.
