Canada (Commonwealth Union)_ Since emerging from bankruptcy ten years ago, two English business partners have given Canada’s Davie Shipbuilding new life by filling orders for the country’s military and Coast Guard. Vicefield, the chairman and CEO of Inocea and a director of Davie Shipbuilding, claimed that Inocea spent “several hundred” million dollars last year preparing the shipyard for the significant contract. He told TradeWinds that once it is finished, “it will probably be the most cutting-edge shipyard in North America since we’ll be manufacturing ships undercover.” The ship’s financier and owner, Inocea, contracts her to the Royal Canadian Navy along with a crew of merchant marines that it trained to operate the military ship. The conversion was completed by Davie Shipbuilding between 2015 and 2017.
The chartering agreement for Asterix received a preliminary two-year renewal from the Canadian government in August 2022. Canada then has the choice of either keeping the ship in service going forward or purchasing it. Earlier than that, the yard successfully assumed control of and finalized a partially completed contract to construct the undersea construction vessel Cecon Pride and deliver it to the Norwegian oilfield services firm Cecon in 2014. The 2,500-gt Armand Imbeau II and 5,000-gt Jos Deschenes II, two LNG-powered ice-breaking ropax ferries that were built by the yard and delivered to the government-run Quebec ferry company in 2017.
Using synthetic fuels to power the power plants on lakes that transport products on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway is one of Davie Shipbuilding’s current commercial endeavors, according to Davies. In terms of his long-term goals, he claimed that to build ships for the booming global commercial sector while also assisting in the decarbonization of the industry is merely the tip of the iceberg. Vicefield stated that Davie Shipbuilding intends to develop adventure cruise ships as well, given its capacity to build extremely complicated boats capable of operating in tough Arctic conditions.
