A North Vancouver based shipyard is the only Canadian shipbuilder among five companies short-listed by B.C. Ferries to bid on construction of three new LNG-fuelled vessels.
Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyards is on a list of pre-qualified companies including shipyards in Norway, Germany, Poland and Turkey invited to put in a proposal to build three intermediate class ships.
The ships - capable of carrying between 125 and 145 cars and 600 passengers - will replace aging vessels on the southern Gulf Islands and Comox to Powell River routes.
Deadline for proposals is the end of February with the first ship expected to be finished by 2016.
So far, Seaspan has not said if it will bid on the ferry construction. A spokesman for the company said discussion of any plans would put the shipyard at a disadvantage.
But shipyard union leader George MacPherson said he's not optimistic the ferries will be built in B.C. B.C. Ferries wants the ships built at the same time Seaspan will be starting work on the federal government's non-combat ships. "We think it's a real disadvantage," he said.
MacPherson, head of the marine workers union, said he believes the ferry corporation has timed its request to make it impossible for B.C. shipbuilders to bid.
"I'm extremely disappointed with the way they're dealing with it," he said.
MacPherson said union officials met previously with Transportation Minister Todd Stone and asked his staff to co-ordinate a meeting between the ferry corporation, shipbuilders and union representatives to discuss the timing of the proposals.
The union had hoped to get the ferry corporation to delay the ferry construction, so local shipyards would stand a better chance. That would give smaller shipyards time to get together as a consortium and make upgrades needed for vessel construction, he said.
"Given the right opportunities they could build one of these vessels," he said.
Chuck Ko, head of North Vancouver's Allied Shipbuilders, said given more time to gear up, his company could have been in the running to build the ferries. But the tight timeline set by the ferry corporation made that impossible, he said.
MacPherson said he's disappointed the ferry corporation didn't sit down with local shipbuilders - adding it looks to him like a forgone conclusion the corporation intends to build the ships offshore.
One of the companies on the short list - Germany's Flensburger shipyard - is the same company that has built four new B.C. ferries in the past 10 years, including a controversial contract to build three new Super-C class vessels worth $542 million in 2004 and a $133 million contract to build a new northern ferry in 2006.
The ferry corporation wants the three new ferries to be capable of running either on LNG or marine diesel oil. They would be the first vessels in the ferry fleet to run on LNG, which is about half the price of diesel.
Last year, the ferry corporation spent about $121 million on fuel.
