The giant Zhoushan Wison yard, now under new ownership and a new name
Wedoany.com Report-Feb 18, A Chinese state-owned enterprise, Nantong Economic and Technological Development Zone Holding Group, has acquired Zhoushan Wison Offshore Engineering, a unit of the Wison Group that was sanctioned by the Biden Administration for its involvement in supporting Russia's LNG export ambitions on the Arctic coast of Siberia.
The U.S. State Department imposed sanctions on Wison for supplying power generation modules to Novatek's heavily sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project. The modules, which were to be installed on Arctic LNG 2's barge-based liquefaction trains, were shipped to the construction site through a series of complex transshipment operations that seemed designed to obscure the movements of the large and expensive project cargo. Two vessels involved in these operations, Hunter Star and Nan Feng Zhi Xing, had previously been sanctioned for chartering activity in Russian energy projects.
In response to the sanctions, Wison New Energies, the parent company of Zhoushan Wison, pledged to avoid any new Russian business and announced its intention to sell its entire stake in the sanctioned unit. After the sale, Wison New Energies will no longer have any shareholding in the company.
The new owner, Nantong Economic and Technological Development Zone Holding Group, is a Class I state-owned enterprise with access to preferential credit terms. The shipyard has been renamed Zhoushan Tongzhou Offshore Engineering. Despite the sanctions on the Zhoushan unit, Wison remains in the offshore construction industry and has broken ground on a new, unsanctioned shipyard complex called Wison New Energies Qidong Yard. This plant will compete in the same market as the sanctioned Zhoushan yard and will be a strategic pillar for completing large-scale EPCIC contracts, such as FLNGs, FPSOs, and plant modules.
