Engineering firms win shipyard contract in Kazakhstan
Consulting firms Royal HaskoningDHV and Witteveen+Bos have won a major contract to design a new shipyard in Kazakhstan that will allow the country to ship its own oil and to be less dependent on other countries for oil transport. The project is managed by the energy companies Eni and KazMunayGas.
Kazakhstan is planning to build a shipyard near the town of Kuryk on the Caspian Sea, a shipyard that will make the country less dependent on Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan for oil transport. The shipyard is of great strategic importance to Kazakhstan’s economy as the yard will provide ship building, repair and maintenance to support the country’s growing oil and gas exploration and its production activities. In addition to this, the shipyard will also be beneficial to local communities as it will provide for approximately 750 jobs.
Engineering and consulting firms Royal HaskoningDHV and Witteveen+Bos have been awarded the €15 million contract to design the shipyard. The consulting firms will provide services that include project management, planning, onshore marine works, buildings, and mechanical & electrical services. “The programme timeline is very short, so our challenge is to create a fully integrated project team that allows rapid decision making and efficient co-ordination between the large number of different but inter-related technical areas within the project,” says Wim Klomp, Project Director at Royal HaskoningDHV. Egbert Teunissen, Project Director at Witteveen+Bos, adds: “Our local presence in Kazakhstan for the last 20 years and Royal HaskoningDHV’s specialist shipyard expertise really do make the perfect combination for this project. Now we have won the contract we are looking forward to proving how well we can work together and deliver a successful project for our client.”
The two firms were awarded the contract to design the shipyard by the Italian energy company Eni, who together with the national company KazMunayGas (KMG), manages the project. With the design phase underway the Eni-KMG team is now searching for potential international partners with shipbuilding and ship repair expertise that could invest in and operate the newly developed shipyard.
