The government has approved the conclusion of the second annex to the concession agreement for the commercial use of the shipyard port in Bijela with the company Adriatic 42 from Tivat, which extends the deadline for the completion of the environmental remediation procedure of the area of the former Adriatic shipyard, which was given as a long-term concession to that company, until December 31 of this year.
This again extends the deadlines for the establishment in Bijela of a new modern center for the overhaul and maintenance of super and mega yachts, which should be established here by the Tivat company Porto Montenegro and its partner from Dubai, the concern Drydocks World.
Work on remediation, that is, collection and export of waste grit from ship blasting, contaminated soil, oil and other pollutants present in the area of the former shipyard as a by-product of decades of ship repair activity, has been carried out since 2018 by the French company Valgo, which won the job at an international tender. Remedial works include the removal of about 120 thousand tons of grit and contaminated soil from Bijela, and the contract with Valga worth 22 million euros is financed from the loan that the Government concluded with the World Bank in 2014 for lending the project "Management of industrial waste and cleaning" for four black spots in Montenegro, the most significant of which is the Bijela shipyard.
According to the original contract, Valgo had 21 months to complete the work, but it turned out that it was not well prepared by the Nature Protection Agency, on behalf of which it is the project manager of the cleaning of Bijela. Almina Bucan. In addition, Valgo also had problems in obtaining permits for the import of grit to Spain, so there were several delays in its shipment, which was taken from Bijela by ship. This is why the project of opening a new overhaul shipyard and service center for yachts is significantly delayed.
In 2018, the Government concluded a concession agreement with the consortium Montenegro Yacht Servce from Tivat, which consisted of the companies Adriatic Marinas-Porto Montenegro and the Dutch shipbuilding concern Damen. In the meantime, the Dutch gave up on this business, so Adriatic Marinas found a new partner, Drydocks World, with which it took over the concession for Bijela, and renamed its concessionaire company Montenegro Yachtr Service to Adriatic 42.
According to earlier plans, the new service center will be able to overhaul yachts up to 120 meters in length and will have a large synchro-lift, a pair of travel lifts with a larger capacity, four modern repair workshops, among which is a fully enclosed yacht painting workshop. The total planned investment level in the first three years is a minimum of 20 million. The contract with the concessionaire stipulates that the investment period starts from the date of submission of the expert's report confirming that the concession area has been cleared of grit so that the concessionaire (Adraatic 42) can start the investment plan. The originally agreed completion date of the remediation with the company Valgo was March 31, 2020, and it has already been changed to December 31, 2021 due to work delays.
"There is an obvious delay in the performance of remediation works compared to the defined deadline. This made it impossible for the concessionaire to take over the rehabilitated location in the manner specified in the concession contract. Therefore, there was a need to amend the concession contract in the part of defining the date of completion of the remediation, in such a way as to determine December 31, 2022, by which time it is expected that the remediation works will be completed", it is written in the Government's information on the conclusion of the second annex to the contract which was adopted by the Government at the last session last year, obliging the director of the Maritime Safety and Port Management Administration of Montenegro to sign the annex with the Adriatic 42 company.
In the Government's material, there is no concrete explanation why the works carried out by Valgo are again drastically delayed and who is responsible for the fact that the start of a new large foreign investment in Boka Kotorska has been delayed for almost three years.
Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic, Minister of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism Ratko Mitrović, the French ambassador to Montenegro Christian Timonius and the president of the company Valgio François Bouche, visited the environmental remediation works on May 4 last year and sent optimistic messages that the work will be completed soon. Until that moment, as it was announced at the time, Valgo had exported only 38.996 tons of hazardous grit to Spain from the beginning of the land remediation project, out of over 120.000 tons of waste that it needs to remove. The day after that visit to Bijela, another ship sailed with about 6.300 tons of grit, but from then until today, not much progress has been made in the implementation of this work, which is paid for by taxpayers in Montenegro.
Krivokapić talked about the obstruction, then kept silent
In May of last year, Krivokapić stated that what Valgo is doing "represents a new beginning for Bijela and he hopes that just as the whole of Montenegro is being resurrected, that Bijela will also experience a renaissance".
"In order for the renaissance to happen, we have to bring this area to an ecologically correct state. The first ship that is here after a year and a half is a testimony that, most likely, with ten more ships, this place will gain importance from an ecological point of view", he said.
The Prime Minister said that in the previous period, there was an obstruction to prevent the work from being completed earlier.
"So that this renowned French company is not the one to finish this job. Thanks to the efforts of the Government, primarily the Ministry of Ecology, we finally completed the work to the satisfaction of the three parties, the World Bank, the French company Valgo, and we owe special thanks to Ambassador Timonije, who put a lot of effort into completing this in the best possible way and of course the main parties, which is the Government, or rather, the citizens of Montenegro," Krivokapić said.
The Prime Minister did not advertise any more regarding the remediation, although its delay continued, which is why the Government had to extend the deadline for the start of investments by the new concessionaire by a year.
Two days after the Prime Minister's visit, a ship with 6.300 tons of waste grit for Spain set sail from Bijela, and then it was announced that it was the first of a total of five ships planned to export 30 tons of industrial waste grit to Spain, and that the authorities of that country, gave preliminary permission for the export of 40 thousand tons.
At the time, the Agency for Nature and Environmental Protection announced that they expect the Spanish authorities to issue an import permit during June, and then the Agency will issue an export permit.
"With these permits, we solved the pressing problem of connections for the export of waste from the Bijela shipyard," Bučan told the media at the time.
She stated that the environmental remediation will be completed by the end of November 2021 and that after cleaning, the area will be handed over to the concessionaire for use.
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