Nordic Yards mulls BNDES loan for Brazil shipyard project
WISMAR, Germany. Feb 20 (Interfax) - Nordic Yards is planning to raise a loan from the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) to build a shipyard in Brazil, the company's owner, Vitaly Yusufov told reporters.
"We're at the early stage of planning and agreements with the local authorities, mainly on the opportunities for support for our project from the point of view of infrastructure. We think the local authorities ought to provide the infrastructure. And secondly, support in financing. Brazil has the opportunity to collaborate on such projects with the Brazilian Development Bank. We plan to raise considerable long-term funds at relatively low interest," he said.
Shipyards have long pay-back periods, Yusufov said. "We'll be talking about 15-20 years for the return of borrowed funds. At present we have no estimate of [the volumes] of construction, we've not even started work on the blueprints. We plan to spend half a year on the concept and business case, and a 12-18 months after that on design," he said.
Yusufov said that building production sites in Brazil was one of the country's main requirements for obtaining orders on the local market.
The yard in Brazil would not just build ships but also repair vessels for Petrobras and its subsidiary Petrobras Petro.
The Vedomosti newspaper has quoted a Nordic Yards representative as saying that the company might build a yard in Brazil at a cost of 300 million euro to build vessels for oil and gas production, but the company itself has not confirmed that amount.
Nordic Yards and a local partner have registered the company Nordic Yards do Brasil. The name of the local partner, the equity distribution and project timeframe have not been disclosed. According to the company representative, Nordic Yards do Brasil will build a ship repair and possibly a ship building yard.
