BUILDING BEYOND THE JONES ACT

摘要

With Crowley's recent $500 million deal with Aker Philadelphia for the construction of four 50,000 dwt product tankers-which could potentially expand to eight-it's hard not to be excited about what's going on in the Jones Act market. The tankers will be built with the idea of possibly using Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as fuel in the future. Of course, NASSCO already has orders for two LNG-fuelled 3,100-TEU containerships for TOTE. With what's going on in the shale gas market, the U.S. could possibly emerge as a leader in LNG fuelled ships. This begs the question, "Can U.S. shipbuilders export their expertise to international owners?"In any given year, there are only a handful of commercial vessels built by U.S. shipyards for export. In the last five years, I can only recall two shipyards building for commercial export; Kvichak Marine, Seattle, WA, delivered a series of pilot boats for the Dutch; and Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, a Duclos Corporation, Somerset, MA, has built several fast ferries and pilot boats for Bermuda and the Caribbean. If there were other commercial export orders out in the last five years that I missed, please let me know.