Remembering Jose Sergio de Oliveira Machado with what he felt towards shipbuilding industry

Born on 18^th Dec 1946, Sergio Machado was a visionary who led the shipping industry in Brazil to great heights. In his remarkable career as a politician, his undeterred perseverance and ability to see beyond the discernible was exemplary. Here are the excerpts from an interview where Sergio Machado talks about growing shipping industry:

Jornal do Commercio – In 10 years, Promef delivered only seven ships. Do you make any positive assessment out of this?
Jose Sergio de Oliveira Machado – We structured the program in 2004, but the first contract was signed in 2007. For 4 years, we didn’t deliver any ships. But in three years, we made 7 ships. I think that is a decent progress.

We spent 20 years with no order and the shipping industry now has the world’s fourth largest portfolio of ships in general and the third in tankers. We employ over 80,000 people and all the three new sites have been created by Promef. Two out of these are in Pernambuco. We are treading on the right path. There is a staggering demand for rigs and support vessels and we are shaping up to become key players on a global belvedere.
Jornal do Commercio – The forecast was that the completions were to happen in 2016 but the deadline has been pushed to 2020. Don’t you think this delay is greater than expected?
Jose Sergio de Oliveira Machado – The first ship took longer than expected. From the second onwards, delays have been reduced. Today we are working with delays of two to three months.

Jornal do Commercio – The João Cândido and Zumbi dos Palmares were built in 45 months, the Sea Dragon on the other hand took 39 months. What is the goal of Transpetro?
Jose Sergio de Oliveira Machado– The time scheduled was between 24 to 30 months. We want to progress gradually. The winning idea is to stay at the cusp of the learning curve. Miracles aren’t done overnight. This is a common phenomenon. In Korea, the first three ships of the Hyundai were not accepted by the customer did not accept and they had to make several tweaks. We did not have this problem. The João Cândido, which was the first ship last year was named best ship in the fleet and has just returned from a trip to Chile, taking oil back and through the Strait of Magellan. This a difficult region, with huge waves but the ship performed exceedingly well.

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