The overhaul of two ships of the Navy of the Army of Montenegro (MVCG), which began more than a year ago in the "Adriatic42" shipyard in Bijela, has not yet been completed, and neither the Ministry of Defense nor the management of that shipyard have communicated the precise reasons why this is so.
Last year, after conducting a tender, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract with the shipyard "Adriatic42" backed by the shipbuilding corporation "Drydocks world Dubai" and the nautical center "Porto Montenegro" from Tivat, on the overhaul of two, in addition to the school ship "Jadran", the most significant and the largest ship in operational use of the Croatian Navy - patrol boat P-105 "Durmitor" and offshore tug PR-41 "Orada".
According to the contract worth 699.698 euros including VAT, which "Adriatic42" signed with the Ministry of Defense on August 4 last year, the company from Bijela had a deadline of 365 days to complete the contracted works on both these ships. However, although the work started shortly after the signing of the contract - at the beginning of August, when the ships arrived in Bijela, it has not yet been completed. Therefore, P-105 "Durmitor" and PR-41 "Orada" are still on dry land, on the operational platform of the shipyard in Bijela, to this day, more than a year after they were lifted from the sea by a travel lift.
In the meantime, the Ministry and "Adriatic 42" signed another contract in mid-July of this year for the overhaul of these same two ships with amended and supplemented statements of overhaul works compared to last year's. The value of this arrangement is 662.645 euros including VAT. In that contract, which was signed by the Minister of Defense Dragan Krapović i executive director of "Adriatic42" Marko Blažević, which was filed with the Ministry on July 10, and with "Adriatic42" on July 19, and is available on the central electronic public procurement portal of Montenegro - it says that the deadline for ship overhaul is 60 days. By concluding this second arrangement, the Ministry of Defense practically agreed that the two MVCG ships will be kept in Bijela at least until mid-September - two months longer than the deadline originally agreed last year.
According to these two contracts, in addition to the standard dock work on the underwater part of the hull, propeller shafts, rudders and valves, the overhaul work that was to be carried out on these two MVCG vessels in Bijela also included ultrasonic measurement of the thickness of the ship's sheets at 1.000 points per ship , replacement of possible weak parts of sheet metal on the ship's bed, and in the case of the tug "Orada" and some additional piping and work on the fuel tanks, i.e. in the propulsion complex of the ship, as well as on the ventilation and air conditioning system, i.e. living quarters on the tug.
To the "News" from the management of the company "Adriatic42", even after more than 20 days since the questions were sent to them, they did not answer the specific reason why that company did not complete the contracted overhauls of the P-105 "Durmitor" patrol boat and the offshore tugboat even a year after the start of these operations. PR-41 "Sea bream".
"What are the reasons why the overhauls of those two ships have not been completed so far - lack of technical documentation, weak preparation of the overhaul by the Technical Service of the Navy of the Croatian Voivodeship, problems in the shipyard 'Adriatic42' to carry out the simplest overhaul work on warships or something else? What specifically has been done so far on these two ships from the contracted works, that is, what percentage of the planned overhaul works has been completed so far?" - these are the questions that were not answered by the "News" from "Adriatic42", as well as the newspaper's interest in announcing when these two ships will finally be completed, returned to the sea and when the usual post-overhaul test runs will begin with them before they are again returned to operational Navy use.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Defense claims that everything is fine and that the deadline for the overhaul of these two ships, which have therefore been out of service for more than a year, has not actually been breached.
"The Ministry of Defense concluded a contract with the company 'Adriatic 42 doo Herceg Novi' on the execution of the service of docking military ships with the repair of superstructures and devices on August 4, 2023, in accordance with the conditions established in the tender documentation, the selected offer of the bidder and the decision on the selection of the most favorable offer. Dock works are carried out on the ships P-105 'Durmitor' and PR-41 'Orada'. The deadline for the implementation of the contract is 365 days and it is proceeding in accordance with the planned dynamics. Of the major contracted works, the replacement of the bearings on the shaft lines of the main engines on both ships, the return of the shafts, as well as the painting of the ships, remained to be completed," the department headed by Minister Dragan Krapović (Democrats) told "Vijesta".
However, they did not specify when the overhauls of "Durmitor" and "Orada" will finally be completed and these ships returned to use.
The Ministry of Defense did not even answer the questions of "Vijesti" whether the fact that this work has not yet been completed indicates its possible weak preparation by their Directorate for Material Resources, that is, the Technical Service of the MVCG, or the inability of the shipyard "Adriatic42" to carries out even the simplest possible overhaul interventions on ships, which do not include any more complicated operations on the mechanics, installations, equipment, sensors and weapons of warships.
"Adriatic42" is a shipyard whose primary purpose is the overhaul of yachts and megayachts, and in the case of "Durmitor" and "Orada" this company for the first time encountered the service and maintenance of warships, for which special, stricter norms apply everywhere in the world. and military quality standards.
According to unofficial information from "Vijesti", one of the reasons why work on two ships of the Croatian Navy in Bijela took so long was, allegedly, the condition of the construction of the hull and ship's sheets of the tugboat "Orada" was worse than expected, which required more extensive repairs, so it is very likely that therefore the final bill that will be presented to the Ministry of Defense will be higher than the originally agreed amount.
In the summer of last year, when they signed the contract with the shipyard from Bijela, from the Ministry of Defense, which was then managed by the Minister of Internal Affairs as an acting official Filip Adzic (Civil Movement URA) announced that "the Ministry of Defense of Montenegro concluded a multi-year contract with the company 'Adriatic42' from Bijela with the aim of ensuring the regular dynamics of the maintenance of the vessels of the Navy of Croatia". On the CEJN portal of public procurement, information can be found that the value of that arrangement concluded under the "invitation to conclude a framework agreement" is EUR 9.700.000 including VAT.
"The dock works, as well as complex works on the MVCG ships, have been started, in order to raise their technical correctness to a higher level", they said at the time from the Ministry of Defense, which, however, even a year later, these two ships are not in good condition, capable of regular use .
By the way, after a number of years, these are the first major investments in the patrol boat P-105 "Durmitor" and the tugboat PR-41 "Orada", which, together with the training ship "Jadran", currently represent the bulk of the naval forces of the Croatian Navy.
Navy without support after the closure of "Arsenal"
Since the closure of the former military shipyard "Arsenal" in Tivat in 2007, the VCG Navy has been left without any serious logistical and technological support, which had a disastrous effect on the reliability of its vessels, and thus on the level of combat readiness of this branch of the army.
This problem is further complicated because in the meantime the Navy received and put into operational use four new fast American patrol boats of the "Silver ships CFRB 46" type, and in the next three years this type of army should also receive two newly built French medium patrol boats of the "Kership" type OPV-60", worth 120 million euros. Therefore, the question of their adequate regular maintenance and repair is already being raised.
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