Brazil’s EISA shipyard files for bankruptcy

Brazil’s Estaleiro Ilha (Eisa) shipyard in Rio de Janeiro has filed for bankruptcy, just a day after its 3,000 staff arrived to work on Monday to find the yard had closed and would be making them redundant.

The yard told press the bankruptcy filing was made in order to preserve the site and allow operations to be resumed as soon as possible.

Jobs have been cut to reduce the shipyard’s operating costs as much as possible, the yard’s president wrote in a letter to staff seen by local press.

Shipyard data shows the yard received firm orders for 19 vessels of a variety of types since 2007, but delivery of the majority has been delayed by several years or perhaps abandoned entirely. Clients included Log-In Logística, BSCO Navegacao and Astromaritima Navegacao, among others.

Of the 19 orders, nine platform supply vessels were ordered between 2011 and 2012, but only one is reported to have been launched (but not delivered); the keel on another was laid in 2014 but no further progress has been reported, according to data from Yard Intel.

Eisa is controlled by businessman German Efromovich, who in June closed the gates of Maua Estaleiro shipyard in Niterói, reportedly due to lack of resources with which to complete vessels for Transpetro, Petrobras’ shipping subsidiary. Three oil tankers remain unfinished at Mauá, reports say.

A representative from the Forum of Industry Workers Naval and Petroleum told Brazilian press that workers dismissed from the Mauá have not yet received severance pay. The union fears the same will happen with those laid off from the Eisa yard.