Seaspan Marine entered into a technology support agreement with STX Offshore and Shipbuilding Company Ltd. This partnership will optimize Vancouver Shipyard’s planned facilities upgrades for the Federal Government’s recently awarded $8 billion Non-Combat National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) program. STX is one of the leading shipbuilders in the world and currently produces approximately 60 vessels per year with annual steel throughput over 700,000 tonnes. STX plans to dispatch a technical staff to Vancouver Shipyards to review facility upgrades and provide recommendations for optimizing shipbuilding efficiency.
“This partnership marks a key milestone in the plan to upgrade our facilities and is the beginning of what we believe will be a long and successful relationship with STX,” said Brian Carter, Seaspan Shipyard’s President. “We are extremely happy STX has signed on with us and look forward to evolving our facility into a world-class shipyard.”
“We are also extremely delighted to build long-term partnerships with Seaspan Shipyards and anticipate this technology support will lead to the enhancement of competitiveness of Seaspan Shipyards and ultimately contribute to the Canadian Shipbuilding industry,” said Sungsoo Shin, Deputy President of STX offshore and Shipbuilding.
The technology support, provided by STX, will initially focus on optimizing shop layouts, material flow, and production methods and processes.
“The efficiency improvements STX finds will be reflected in final facility designs providing significant long-term benefits to both the Government of Canada and future commercial customers. The improvements will also make Vancouver Shipyards more efficient and better able to compete internationally retaining shipbuilding jobs in BC,” said Carter.