This is where Fincantieri will aim
Coin ceremony for the first MSC built in Genoa by Fincantieri. In the meantime, last week the leaders of the group visiting the United States also traced the course on the military business
Under construction in Genoa Explora II, the 500 million ship built by Fincantieri for the MSC group.
Yesterday the shipbuilding group started the construction of the Explora II, the second of six ships of Explora Journeys, the new luxury brand of the Cruise Division of the MSC Group in Genoa, in the Fincantieri shipyard in Sestri Ponente.
The construction of Explora II required an investment of around 500 million euros on the part of MSC. Explora II is part of an order for four luxury ships from MSC to Fincantieri for over 2.2 billion, to which are added two options – Explora V and Explora VI – which would bring the total value of the order to around 3.5 billion euros .
But in addition to the civil activity, Fincantieri also pays particular attention to the military business. After a week in the United States and meetings with high-level leaders of the US Navy, the CEO of FIncantieri Pierroberto Folgiero, accompanied by the president Claudio Graziano, discussed the impacts of the war in Ukraine and which regions of the world the company will target in the New Year.
In the US, the group is focusing on the maxi contract awarded in 2020 with the US Navy for three frigates — out of an expected total order of 20. Fincantieri, with its Marinette Marine (FMM) shipyard, presented a design derived from the Italian version of the Fremm frigates, built for Italy and for France.
“We perceive a lot of expectations from the US Navy,” Folgiero told Breaking Defense in an exclusive interview last week.
All the details.
THE IMPACT OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE
Since the start of Russia's war in Ukraine, defense budgets across Europe have steadily increased. But the first investments of those new euros went mainly to land equipment, and in the background to air assets, notes Breaking Defense . Fincantieri President Graziano acknowledged that the new increases will not have a significant impact on shipbuilding in the foreseeable future, largely due to the types of equipment purchased and the relatively small part of budgets earmarked for aiding Ukraine.
"It's not the biggest part of the budget," he said. “It's an immediate need to [fund] something that we don't have right now… But the moment we're building it, I don't think it's depriving the Navy of the amount [of money] it needs,” Graziano noted.
Graziano noted the inherent long-term nature of shipbuilding and that spending $7 million on a tank versus $1 billion on a warship is a "different mindset" for how to allocate funding.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DUAL USE FACTOR FOR MILITARY VESSELS
At the same time, CEO Folgiero highlighted that naval vessels are more "dual-use" than the military equipment that is purchased, and expressed his belief that it could help justify increased spending on vessels in the future. .
“Eventually, these big budget increases have to be justified to taxpayers. And I believe that the navy has an [extra advantage] in this sense, because it is more versatile, because it can be used to defend commercial trade, because it is used to defend energy infrastructures”, highlighted the number one of Fincantieri. "I believe the dual nature of the navy increases the 'marketability' of extra defense spending."
FINCANTIERI LOOKS AT THE UNMANNED, INTEREST NOT ONLY IN THE USA
Meanwhile, there is growing interest in unmanned maritime vehicles, both in the US and in places like the UK, France and Sweden. In September 2020, the Department of Defense and the US Navy awarded Fincantieri Marinette Marine a contract worth 7 million dollars to develop the design and engineering of the Large Unmanned Surface Vessels (LUSV). In other words, future large "unmanned" surface ships, capable of operating without a crew on board.
At Breaking Defense Graziano said he is confident that unmanned systems will be part of the future for all militaries: similar to artificial intelligence, “it doesn't matter if you like it or not… it's coming”. “When you think of [an aircraft like] the F-35… it was designed, researched and developed for 20 years. It is still in production and will remain in production for 50 years,” explained the president of Fincantieri. “The new development will happen in the future, in 20 [or] 30 years. To build an unmanned vessel or the size of a frigate, surely it takes at least 10 years of research and development”.
FOCUS MIDDLE EAST BUT ATTENTION ALSO TO SOUTH-EAST ASIA
Finally, when asked by Breaking Defense about possible places for Fincantieri to grow this year, Folgiero focused first and foremost on the Middle East, noting the long-standing good political and diplomatic relations between Italy and the region.
“The natural market of a southern European country as we are geopolitically and commercially is North Africa and the Middle East,” Folgiero underlined. "Then obviously, above the Mediterranean there is the part of Europe that is close to Russia, where the temperature is rising, like Romania and Bulgaria."
According to Fincantieri's CEO, South-East Asian countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia are also interesting. “We are facing an investment cycle where defense will be more than before,” he said. “And our offering is such that, ultimately, frigates and corvettes are: If you're new to the Navy, that's where you start. You don't start from aircraft carriers. We don't start with submarines because it's not for everyone” concluded Pierroberto Folgiero.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/ecco-dove-puntera-fincantieri/ on Thu, 09 Feb 2023 06:10:29 +0000.