USC accounts for up to 80% of Russian shipbuilding. Since its inception in 2007, when USC has consolidated most of the country’s shipbuilding complex, the corporation has been trying to centrally solve the problems that individual enterprises in the industry had previously struggled with. One of the main ones is to increase the share of civil orders, in nine years they should bring half of the proceeds.
However, even now the lobbying efforts of the company and its CEO Alexei Rakhmanov are not always enough to radically change the situation. USC shipyards are far from fully loaded – loans for the purchase of ships are too expensive for customers, and the cost of their construction in the course of the execution of the order grows exorbitantly.
Even import substitution and localization, which were disciplined by the corporation owned by the state, added difficulties: private companies cannot be ordered to order ships in domestic configuration. Rakhmanov believes that the solution to the problem can be, in particular, the regulation of pricing in the industry. In an interview with Vedomosti, he tells what steps he expects from the state and what he is taking himself. USC is thinking about further diversification of the business: they are going to increase the volume of services and do not exclude that they will seriously engage in transport logistics.
– Now you get 21% of the proceeds from civil orders. By 2030, the defense industry enterprises are faced with the task of achieving parity between military and civilian products. How and at what expense is the process going, is there a demand for “citizenship”?
– Its share is gradually increasing, over the past five years we have achieved an average annual revenue growth rate of 26%. By 2030, we will most likely see two counter trends: the first is a reduction in the state defense order, and the second is an increase in the production of civilian products. Due to this, parity can happen.
In our long-term development program, the total revenue for the year is about RUB 500 billion. I do not believe that in the foreseeable future we will be able to receive revenues from civilian products in the amount of 250-320 billion rubles. per year, but we are definitely aiming for 180-200 billion. We see the prospect of a number of large orders for technologically sophisticated vessels, we hope that another two icebreakers of the LK-60 project will appear in addition to what Rosatom has already ordered.
We are convinced that shipbuilding is not a supermarket: you cannot come, get something from the shelf and say: “I want it.” But so far it turns out, like in a store: for example, a floating power plant “Akademik Lomonosov” was built for Rosatom – there is a demand.
– That is, civil customers have a kind of herd instinct: bought one – everyone ran after the same?
– Rather, it is a lack of trust. Well, then, few people want to take risks. And this is also a reflection of the price of money. For our consumers, money is still expensive today – they are waiting for subsidies, government assistance, so they are in no hurry to invest. In such a situation, 90% of technical innovative ideas are the result of our initiative.
– Now we are making a river tram called “Sotalia” – this is a 30-seater pleasure and tourist boat that can operate in the river waters of cities, and on routes where there are no bridges or regular road communications. For its development, we took money from our net profit and designed a product for a given cost price – our military design bureaus did not know how to do this before. Together with our partners, we have created a new propulsion – this is a pure import substitution: we will supply a Russian “hot” diesel engine. And then we will promote the concept of the franchise – we will become suppliers of a set of equipment and materials, but anyone on the market can build the hulls, if necessary. The number of such river equipment and equipment of the “river-sea” class, which requires replacement, is thousands, it will be difficult for us to close this market ourselves, but, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, there are many private regional companies with whom we can share. This will not entail competitive losses for us, but will allow us to get the best prices for components due to economies of scale.
Project image of “Sotalia”
– You talked about the prospect of building 700-1200 ships by 2040 for a total amount of at least 800 billion rubles. Is this an assessment of the capacities of domestic shipbuilding enterprises, or are you provoking demand in this way? Are the corporation’s shipyards busy today?
– This is something in between the capabilities of the shipyards and the market demand. But the figures that we name in our strategic plans are no more than 35% of the need to replace the old fleet.
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