Tema Shipyard 2018 Target On Course

With two months to close 2018, the Tema Shipyard Limited is strategically poised to beat its target of 42 vessels calling in for either major or minor repair works.

At the moment, the Shipyard had completed works on 30 offshore and fishing vessels and with about 10 at anchorage, waiting their turn to berth in the shipyard for repair works.

Since the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) took over the operations of the shipyard in June 2016, the drydock has been very busy with vessels calling at the place.

For instance, between July and December 2016, the facility worked on 18 vessels. Prior to the taking over by the GPHA, January to June 2016, saw the shipyard work on only six vessels.

In 2017, 34 vessels called at the dock for various works to be carried on them and this was after the shipyard took delivery of new equipment from the GPHA.

The development the shipyard is witnessing today follows series of agitations by the united workers' front, which was resolute in pushing for the change of management, when the facility almost neared collapse in 2015.

Their pressure paid off when in 2016, the government instructed the GPHA to take over the management and operations of the facility, which eventually saw the latter injecting GH₵13.4million to revive the shipyard.

In a bid to boost the stock of equipment for operational activities, Management of the Shipyard used substantial part of the money to procure some essential machinery and used the rest to refurbish the infrastructural facilities in the company.

The turning point of the Tema Shipyard Limited has attracted six investors who have expressed interest in the facility.

The successful bidder would, among other things, revamp, manage and operate the facility according to terms of agreement.

And now that Ghana has launched an Oil and Gas Licensing bid, it is also expected that oil vessels that dock at the shipyard would increase proportionally, especially when 5,000 vessels, on the average, call at the Tema and Takoradi ports.

During a tour of the facility by a section of the media, two vessels were being worked on by the indigenous staff, and according to them, they are better-positioned and well-conditioned than before, following the new life they are enjoying.

The new life at the shipyard, Captain Francis Kwesi Micah, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the facility, told the newsmen is expected to, among other things, fully develop the ship building business, upgrade graving docks with the capacity to repair vessels up to 100,000 weight capacity and fully develop the shipyard for heavy steel and aluminium fabrication and outfitting works.