Shipbuilding in russia is declining due to the lack of Western spare parts

russian shipbuilders have been forced to cut production, having been left without foreign spare parts. Import substitution of at least some of them will be possible in a few years at best.

Source. The Wall Street Journal reports.

russia's United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) is building 59 cargo ships. In 2020, it delivered 17 vessels, in 2021 – 16, but in the past – only four, because screw columns stopped coming from Germany, several people familiar with the company's orders told the WSJ.

They had been trying to localize their production even before the invasion. In 2018, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin promised that in 2019 russia would start producing the latest screw propellers, a key element of a ship's propulsion system. They were to be produced by a joint venture between Rosneft and General Electric for large-capacity vessels manufactured by the Zvezda shipbuilding complex.

However, on March 8, 2022, General Electric announced the suspension of its operations in russia.

Zvezda's order book, whose main client is Rosneft (it needs tankers, gas carriers, including ice-class ones), includes more than 50 vessels. Those components that were in stock before the sanctions were imposed were installed with the help of Korean partners, and they stopped working with russia.

In addition, according to Zvezda's manager, production at the shipyard in Primorsky Krai is intermittent due to the lack of imported engines. It will take several years to start producing some of the necessary components in russia, he says.

Background. As a reminder, the head of a plant that supplies submarines to the russian Black Sea Fleet unexpectedly died in russia in December.