With a rich and long history, the TEREMSHIPYARD Flotski Arsenal – Varna Ltd in Bulgaria remains the largest and most significant shipyard that has served the nation’s Navy with distinction. Having diversified out to cater to commercial vessels, the 100% state-owned shipyard is now looking beyond its 125th anniversary in 2022 with cautious optimism. Andy Probert reports.
TEREM-SHIPYARD
Flotski Arsenal – Varna Ltd began life as a small forge in 1897 but was quickly transformed into the first shipyard in Bulgaria, focusing on maintaining the ships of the newly-established Bulgarian Navy.
Fast forward to 2022, the 100% state-owned Ministry of Defense shipyard, which operates on a totally self-supporting basis, remains a staunch supporter in the maintenance of military vessels but is now primarily focused on the repair of commercial vessels, thanks to an expansion in foreign partnerships.
With the status of a port with special purpose, the shipyard is situated on the shores of Varna Lake, 20km from Varna, the largest city on the Black Sea coast. Covering an area of 617,000 sqm, the yard has two floating docks, four quays, a lifting capacity of 2,200 tonnes and four floating quays along a 1,300m length of coastline.
The shipyard has three rail slipways, each 135m long, serviced by a 45 tonne auto crane, and equipped with electrically driven rail trucks, a portal crane of 16 tonne s /20m, and a 6 tonn e /30m tower crane.
The slipways, which are supplied with electricity, acetylene, oxygen, fresh water and compressed air, are used for repair, con version and new build projects. The shipyard presently employs 450 people, with a complementary pool of 500 subcontractors depending on the size of the project.
TEREM-SHIPYARD’s General Manager Danail Slavov said: “Since 2018, the shipyard has experienced rapid business growth, with the last two years averaging around 40% annually. TEREMSHIPYARD Flotski Arsenal – Varna Ltd posted a €12 million turnover in 2021, the best in the last four years, and for the opening months of 2022, the shipyard was working to near, or at, full capacity.”
Scope of work
Mr Slavov added: “We offer more than just repairs; we offer relia bility. It is a motto that we stand by. Our long history, extensive expertise, and modern workshops enable us to offer high-quality complex ship repairs.”
The shipyard’s scope of work covers complex repairs of vessels and submarines, conversion and modernisation of ships, steel work, spectral analysis of metals and materials, and repairs of radar systems, armaments and electronic equipment. Vessels to a maximum of 14,000 DWT, and up to 200m in length can be accommodated, with vessels up to 165m for the bigger of the two floating docks.
Radoslav Kostadinov, TEREM-SHIPYARD’s Commercial and Marketing Director, said that 80% of all work revolves around repairs and maintenance, with a majority of that dedicated to
commercially-trading vessels. These can include tankers, bulkers, general cargo, and dredging vessels, as well as mega-yachts.
“In 2020, general cargo and tankers accounted for 60% of all work at TEREM-SHIPYARD, and 20% on Naval vessels. Our clients are completely global, and ship owners who have strong trading links within the Black Sea.”
Due to a specific project to dredge channels off the coast of Varna, the shipyard has also seen an uplift in the ongoing mainte nance of seven dredgers assigned to the task.
Varna-born Mr Slavov, who has been General Manager of the shipyard since 2018, added: “There remains ambitions, to increase the new-build segment, in particular small-scale vessels, within the next few years.”
Recent successes were the new build of an 80m target vessel, which took six months to complete for the Bulgarian Navy, and the
TEREM-SHIPYARD FLOTSKI ARSENAL-VARNA I PROFILE“We offer more than just repairs; we offer reliability. It is a motto that we stand by. Our long history, extensive expertise, and modern workshops enable us to offer high-quality complex ship repairs”
conversion of a landing craft into a mine-laying vessel. A tanker from Cyprus was also converted into an anti-pollution ship specif i cally for the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).
Another interesting recent project for the team at TEREM-SHIP YARD was a joint project with construction machine manufacturer Liebherr Ltd to modernise and commission a four-rope grab crane.
“The project on the LIEBHERR CBG-300 was carried out by the ship yard within three weeks thanks to the exceptional professionalism of our production team,” said Mr Slavov. “In great partnership and team work, we managed to do, at the same time, lifting and mounting of the crane and the installation of the Caterpillar generator.”
He added: “A new sector that we are successful in is the repair of mega-yachts. This is because none of our closest competitors will handle the mega-yachts due to the expense and the repairs can be specialised. We have dealt with two yachts recently, at 55m and 90m in length.”
Investing for the future
Mr Slavov said the shipyard was presently considering options to further invest in its infrastructure, with new cutting equipment a t the top of its priority list.
“We are also looking into the possibility of having solar panels within the yard so that we can utilise solar power for our diverse operations here. When the time is right for us, we wish to invest in a new floating dock that will enable us to handle bigger and longer vessels. It is certainly a long-term project that we envision and hope to achieve.”
Mr Slavov reflected that the shipyard took all necessary mea sures against the pandemic and adopted more digitisation to enable the yard to conduct repairs without the need for clients to visit. “In fact, we were able to continue operations throughout the Covid-19 period without interruption or delay in the schedule.”
He added: “We want to expand and diversify our business fur ther, and take on more clients from western Europe, such as Germany and the Netherlands, so that TEREM-SHIPYARD can maintain its quality reputation worldwide.”
While challenges remain, such as spiralling energy and raw material costs and regional geo-political issues, Mr Kostadinov said: “A real differentiating factor at TEREM-SHIPYARD is the high quality of work, our reliability, the high degree of special ists that we have, and that we have clients who have been returning here for 15 to 20 years.
“We are backed up by state-of-the-art equipment. We are the only Bulgarian shipyard 100% state-owned. We are adaptable to handling a diversified fleet, even down to smaller-scale vessels in the mega-yacht segment.”
Mr Slavov said long-term partnerships, providing added value, transparency, and flexibility, have helped establish a strong client portfolio.
“Our ideal vision is to move forward to become a greener shipyard in the next three years. Having enjoyed 125 years of business, we believe we are now entering a new era in our his tory, and we look forward with optimism,” he concluded. n
