Posted on March 28, 2022
A DredgeWire exclusive
On the occasion of this important shipment (see attached video from Royal IHC), DredgeWire publisher Peter Bowe spoke to Kees Derks, Area Sales Director, for further background.
The order for Western Engineering includes five Beaver 50s and one Beaver 65. Royal IHC received the order in Q4 of 2021, and was able to organize financing for the order through Atradius, the export credit agency.
As most people know, Bangladesh has been a most important source of market demand for portable cutter suction dredges. Derks provided insight on just how important.
Over 100 Dredgers sold to Bangladesh
Counting this new order, and including boosters and support vessels, this new delivery puts Royal IHC over 100 units threshold to the Bangladesh market. Derks says that Western now has a fleet of about 40 dredgers, with fully half from IHC. The balance is from other suppliers such as Chinese and Ellicott of the USA.
The six dredges for this order were all built in Holland at the Kinderdijk yard. Whereas IHC has in the past subcontracted with entities in Eastern Europe for hulls or assembly, Derks says Royal IHC is now doing most everything in the Netherlands as workload dictates.
DredgeWire asked Derks for insight on the growing role of the Chinese in Bangladesh and local construction.
“Hot Topic”
Derks confirmed that for Royal IHC now, where and whether to build in Bangladesh was a “hot topic.” Whereas they have built already in local yards for government customers, they are now considering building locally for private clients as well including multiple partner yards. This trend is driven in part by the high duties on imported dredges.
Derks emphasized, with respect to cost comparisons with low-cost Chinese-built dredges, that “Capital costs are only a small part of the overall cost per cubic meter of dredging.”
Finally, DredgeWire asked Royal IHC about the impact of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Derks noted that is having a big effect on prices which are “going through the roof” as they are all over the world.
