The shipbuilding industry: Bad and good news

Our special presentation for tonight’s show on Straight from the Sky is a thorough discussion on our power situation and what alternatives we have for a new energy source. With us tonight is an old hand in the Power Industry who knows his business very well being the former president of the National Power Corporation (NPC) and currently President and CEO of the Cebu Energy Development Corp. , Mr. Jess N. Alcordo.

Almost a month ago, we had a region-wide blackout due to power outages from our principal source, the Geothermal Power Plants in Tongonan, Leyte that is linked to the island of Cebu via a submarine cable. We are still linked also via submarine cable to the Palimpinon Geothermal Power Plant in Negros Oriental but aside from supplying the entire island of Negros, it is also supplying the entire island of Panay via submarine cable.

While Cebu is getting the best in clean energy through our Geothermal Power Plants, the problem stems from the very unstable connection. Like a chain, it is only as strong as its weakest link. Thus when a power tower falls because of a typhoon or earthquake, we get a blackout. Hence the need for power plants located within the island of Cebu. This is what Global Power Corp. is busy these days, finishing the construction of a Clean Coal Power Plant up in Sangi, Toledo City.

But as we have already seen on tv or in magazines, there are many other sources of power available out there, like wind farms, using state-of-the-art windmills or solar energy, and nuclear energy. These are what Mr. Alcordo and I will be discussing on this very interesting show tonight on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00PM.

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Just when we learned that the world’s financial crisis have already hit a plateau, which means the recovery signs are already being felt worldwide, then came the bombshell from the FBMA shipyard that they haven’t gotten new orders for specialized vessels and therefore, after the two vessels they need to complete, they face a possibility of a shutdown. Todate, they have gone on retrenching 40% of its highly-skilled workers, unless those orders start to come back in. But in a global situation where we can see vessels that are literally on mothballs, the signs of the times means more belt tightening.

While that is the bad news from Balamban, the country’s premier shipbuilding facility, there was some good news that Tsuneishi Heavy Industries, Inc. (Cebu) was on a hiring mode, looking for some 3,000 plus welders as they don’t seem to have problems getting orders for bulk carriers. So Mr. Roberto “Bobby” Aboitiz, Chief Executive Officer of FBMA, told us that some of the retrenched workers would be absorbed by Tsuneishi, even if it is another company.

It can be recalled that a few years ago, FBMA experienced a severe shortage of highly-skilled workers who were pirated by an Australian shipyard. I wanted to know whether those shipyards that are competitors with FBMA are also experiencing shortages in orders. This was confirmed by Mayor Alex Binghay who told me that half of those workers that were pirated to Australia are actually back at work in Balamban.

Because of the global recession, the needs for cargo have diminished and therefore plans to purchase new ships have dried up; more so that those mothballed ships are available at give-away prices. Of course when the recession blows over, I’m sure things would bounce back once more. So the problem is, how to hold on to those world-class workers that has already put Balamban in the world map as a quality builder of ships.

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If you’re driving around in Cebu City these days, allow me to give you this warning: While driving around construction sites, especially those tall buildings along the major roads, you better look up to those buildings because many things are falling down on to cars! That’s exactly what happened to me last Thursday evening. A construction bolt hit the roof of my car at the corner of Escario and Juaña Osmeña Streets at the very same construction that caused Juaña Osmeña St. to collapse at the beginning of this year.

The owners of the building agreed to pay for the damage to my car but this alerted me to start looking at the other construction sites around. I saw that most of them do not have any safety nets that cover the entire building. Contractors only put nets on certain parts of the building or on certain floors. In fact most of the nets that I saw are so torn, construction debris could easily fall to the ground or on people. I hope the OBO would look into this problem.