The Floating Dock Will Be a 'Great Victory' for Tenerife

The national economic newspaper Cinco Días, in its edition today, focuses on the role of the shipyard Tenerife Shipyards, a service and technical assistance company for the naval sector that generates 30 million euros annually and employs just over 300 people. As our readers know, it is the second naval repair company in the Canary Islands, and in the interview with its director, Jonathan Pérez Padrón, several interesting issues arise.

When asked about the floating dock that Tenerife Shipyards plans to place in the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Pérez Padrón states that “bringing the floating dock will be a great victory. But it will not be operational, if all goes well, until 2020. We hope that by the end of the year, we will have resolved the procedures that the Port Authority of Tenerife delayed in raising to Madrid. We are currently waiting for the Ministry of Development to give us the green light.”

“This dock – he continues – would allow dry repairs to be carried out on the island of Tenerife, which is currently not possible. It would allow us to diversify the economy and compete on equal terms with Gran Canaria. But above all, it would be a victory against the lobby that has been established since the privatization of Astilleros Canarios, leading to the closure of Tenerife Shipyards. This resulted in the creation of a monopoly that also exerts pressure on all business associations by maintaining a subcontracting model. Fighting against this lobby has led to us only encountering delays and unjustified refusals since our request for the dock in 2013.”

He adds that “for us, as a company, it would provide stability, strengthen the position of workers, and increase the workforce. We will generate between 800 and 1,000 jobs, some of which will be permanent.”

Additionally, “we also plan to install a floating dock in the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which will be the result of the expansion of the docking line projected in the Port Authority's 2018 business plan, which unfortunately has not yet been tendered, being one of the few works contemplated in this plan that has not yet started.”

He warns that in recent years, “the procedures have slowed down excessively. For example, to respond to the request for temporary authorization of a space in the port, they have taken more than three months. This slowdown, contrary to the intention of the regulation, poses an inconvenience for all port operators, even causing economic harm by not being able to execute the projects that motivate the request for temporary concession of the space.”

Regarding the statement that the Hidramar Group is one of the few companies capable of generating employment and economic activity in the Canary Islands, Pérez Padrón says that “we are a company with a different business model: we bet on engineering, on technology, on the development of our contracted personnel, something that the subcontracting model does not allow. We prioritize the hiring of Canarian talent. Eliminating the intermediary allows us to offer better working conditions. We have incorporated new technologies, such as 3D scanning, finite element analysis, virtual reality, etc., which have helped us position ourselves within the Oil & Gas sector as a company that competes at the forefront with other companies worldwide.”

Jonathan Pérez Padrón emphasizes that the Hidramar Group, which was founded 30 years ago in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, “is still fully operational at the Reina Sofía Dock. In Tenerife, the loss of the previous shipyards represented an impasse in the island's economy, and we are reactivating the sector. Gran Canaria is a well-known port for naval repair, and that guarantees us a good flow of work. Our incredible commercial team manages to attract activity for both Tenerife and Gran Canaria. The amazing team not only manages to deliver projects on time and in form but also leaves the client so satisfied that they want to repeat. For example, one of our latest victories has been attracting the third project from the international group Seadrill for the Hidramar Group in the last three months.”

The director of Tenerife Shipyards recalls that “we are currently the second naval repair operator in the Canary Islands and invest part of our budget in specializing and certifying our good business practices. For example, we are the only Canarian naval repair company that has certifications from the American Petroleum Institute (API).”

Photo: Cinco Días