Two crane drivers are still missing after a 600-ton gantry crane at China’s New Times Shipbuilding was blown over in a hail storm on Friday evening.
A New Times spokesman told TradeWinds on Monday that the search for the workers was ongoing.
The shipyard added it did not expect the incident at its No 2 dry dock to affect its newbuilding delivery schedule.
“On Friday evening, winds of more than force 12 hit Jiangsu province,” the spokesman said.
New Times is now planning to install a new 900-ton gantry crane.
“We are trying to minimise work disruption in the shipyard,” the New Times spokesman said. “The new crane will take around seven to eight months to build.”
New Times said it had tried to acquire a secondhand crane from neighbouring yards but it could not find one that suited the dry dock.
Newbuilding orders
No 2 dry dock is used to construct MR tankers and bulkers up to newcastlemax size.
New Times only secured 11 newbuildings last year amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The spokesman said it still had some berth slots available at its No 1 and No 3 dry docks that will be used for newbuildings affected by the incident.
“We are transferring some vessels that are supposed to be built in the No 2 dry dock to our two other dry docks,” he said.
“We expect three to five vessels to be affected by the collapsed gantry crane, but we will try to minimise the delay as much as possible.
“We will be contacting the owners of the affected newbuildings. We are confident that we can overcome this crisis very quickly. It will also not affect the newbuildings discussions that are taking place at the shipyard.”
New Times is one of the better-known yards in China for building tankers and bulkers.
The privately owned shipyard recently inked a letter of intent with domestic owner Shandong Shipping for 10 MR tankers to be delivered between 2022 and 2024.
In March, New Times ended an eight-year boxship newbuilding drought when it secured an order of four 13,000-teu ships from Lou Kollakis’ Chartworld Shipping of Greece.
