Shipping panel: Speech of Mr. Panos Xenokostas, President & CEO, for the Rebirth and Competitiveness of Neorion Syros Shipyards at the International Shipping Panel
At the 20th Annual Capital Link Invest in Greece Forum which was held in New York on Monday, December 10, 2018, Mr. Panos Xenokostas, President & CEO of ONEX Technologies Inc. held a speech which was particularly welcomed by the shipping, banking and investors audience.
At the event attended by the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (via webcast), the Minister of National Economy, Mr. Euclid Tsakalotos, the Minister of Tourism Minister Mrs. Elena Kountoura and a significant number of leading shipping and international investment organizations, Mr. Xenokostas impressed the audience by presenting the great advances made by the ONEX SYROS SHIPYARDS Team (Member of the ONEX technologies Group) at the Neorion Syros Shipyards from April 2018 until today, as part of the plan for the restart and regeneration of one of the most historic Mediterranean industrial sites.
In his speech, he demonstrated the achievements of Neorion through the ONEX SHIPYARDS model of operation and production such as:
1) The confidence shown by the international ship owners to Neorion, referring as an example, to the 38 tankers for repairs and maintenance, a record number for such a short period of operation. The projection for 2019 is that this figure will reach up 100 – 120 ships.
2) The large scale upgrade program of the yard’s facilities with the complete reconstruction of the Panamax size floating dock “VIOLADO” which will be completed by mid-January 2019. The project includes also the installation of an Aframax size dock.
3) The creation of 300 jobs by March 2018, the increase up to 500 by the end of January 2019 and the projection is that jobs will have reached the number of 1000 to 1200 with the addition of the Aframax size dock.
4) The removal of 25,000 of the total 80,000 tons of the yard’s sand blasting waste and the complete removal until June 2019. The gradual transformation of Neorion into a “green yard” by applying innovative cleaning methods and solving chronic environmental issues.
5) The benefits to date for the local as well as the Greek economy since the restart of Neorion’s operation.
Finally, Mr. Xenokostas presented the results of a pioneering internal research based on a specific algorithm for Neorion’s competitiveness over international competition. The results highlighted the achievement accomplished through three key factors such as Speed – Quality – Prices with the first 38 clients of the shipyard in less than 7 months as a proof.
He also informed that for 2019 the target of the shipyard’s family is to achieve full optimization of methodologies, automation and production processes by completely changing industrial standards.
We note that in this year’s forum top government officials, businessmen, investors and bankers from Greece, Europe and the USA, as well as representatives of the 3 European Institutions (European Commission, European Stability Mechanism and European Central Bank) participated.
