Speaking at a ceo roundtable held by Seatrade and the Singapore Maritime Foundation (SMF) ahead of Sea Asia 2013 in April, Michael Chia, managing director for marine and technology at Keppel O&M said: “Chinese yards have been recently offering crazy payment terms.”
Chia said they had seen one yard offering terms of a 1% downpayment and 99% on delivery and others were offering 5% upfront payment with 95% on delivery.
“All this is to try and attract owners, not the genuine owners sometimes, but speculators into the market. I think this is not good for the industry as whole, for the shipyard industry as well as for the drilling industry. You will have a situation where the market is overbuilt and you will have massive unemployment and utilisation of these rigs in time to come,” Chia explained.
“That is they way Chinese yards are now trying to get their business. Other than that I think they are at a disadvantage to us, from reliability and ability to deliver so they do have to resort to this other weapon.”
He noted that Singapore yards had to remain competitive and that was why they were working hard on productivity, technology and automation.
Chia, who is also the chairman of SMF, is among the distinguished speakers who will be sharing their views at Sea Asia 2013 on 9 – 11 April at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. The region’s premier maritime event Sea Asia 2013 is jointly organised by Seatrade and the SMF for details please visit www.sea-asia.com.
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