The shipping group ALIMIA christens one of its new vessels with the name of "Santander".
The company, owner of ASTANDER, wants to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Cantabrian shipyard and also honor the Port of Santander and Cantabria.
Santander 15-12-22. The internationally integrated shipping group ALIMIA, with Spanish (Germán Suárez Investments) and Greek (A.C. Laskaridis) capital, has given the name "SANTANDER" to a new bulk carrier delivered to the group this year. "As owners of ASTANDER, and given the important anniversary of the shipyard in 2022, which turns 150 years old, we wanted to honor in this way the people who work in the company, the Port of Santander and the region of Cantabria", explained Germán Carlos Suárez, president of Astander, as well as the Canarian shipyard ASTICAN, the Panamanian ASTIBAL and Germán Suárez Investments. For this purpose, a commemorative picture and a plaque have been delivered this morning to the president of the Port Authority of Santander, Francisco Martín.
Mr. Martín thanked for this gesture and congratulated the shipyard for its 150th anniversary "which also coincides with that of the Port of Santander". The head of the main Cantabrian infrastructure has highlighted "the synergies that have occurred since its origins between the two companies and the benefit that this union has meant for Cantabria".
"SANTANDER" is a "panamax" type vessel for international transport of raw materials with a cargo capacity of 63,500 gross registered tons. This vessel, together with 12 other new vessels, are already sailing or will be delivered in the coming months, and all of them constitute the current fleet of the ALIMIA Group, which is characterized by the modernity of its fleet, which complies with the latest and demanding environmental regulations of the international maritime sector, and which has an accumulated cargo capacity of around one million gross tons.
The shipping group, which also owns large shipyards in the Port of Las Palmas (ASTICAN) and in the Panama Canal (ASTIBAL), as well as other port activities outside Europe, will christen a new vessel in 2023 with the name "BALBOA", in honor of ASTIBAL; In 2022 it did the same with the first ship of the new fleet, "LAS PALMAS", to praise the work carried out by the workers of the Canarian shipyard, its port and its city but, above all, to highlight the work of the former shareholder of ALIMIA as well as president of ASTICAN (1989-2019) and ASTANDER (1999-2019), Germán Suárez, who always bet on the growth of the economic activity from the Port of Las Palmas.
ASTANDER, 150 years of history and landmark of the Cantabrian naval sector
The ALIMIA group also wants to celebrate with the naming of the bulk carrier "SANTANDER" the 150 years of history of ASTANDER (1872-2022), flagship of the Cantabrian naval sector and whose history dates back to the Royal Shipyards of Guarnizo (XVI-XVIII), a place where the Spanish Navy built and repaired its ships thanks to the specialized population, the numerous oak trees in its forests and the proximity of the La Cavada Cannon Factory, making it one of the most important shipbuilding centers in the world during that period.
Illustrious people such as Gaztañeta, Gautier and Jorge Juan contributed to this development. An important fact is that, given the large population that settled in this area, the municipality of El Astillero was created, which this year celebrates its 250th anniversary.
With the creation of the arsenals and the appearance of the steamship, the Guarnizo Shipyard went into decline until 1872, when Bernardo Lavín took advantage of the increase in the metal industry business and the growth of the Port of Santander, and established himself a few meters from what was the Guarnizo Shipyard with the first industrial activity organized under a company that was later named ASTANDER.
Since then, until today, the shipyard has had different owners, such as Casimiro Tijero (1923-1948), Banco Santander (1948-1965) or Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval (1965-1999), when the main facilities and docks were built. After the "boom" of shipbuilding, the decline and crisis of the sector followed, which was staged with the closure of shipyards all over Europe.
In 1999, the shipyard was acquired by its current owners, managing in a few years to become again a reference in ship repair and transformation, but never exempt from the enormous and constant financial effort required to be sustainable in the long term in a tremendously mature and volatile sector, such as ship repair.
Great projects are appearing in the shipyard, which is once again resuming an activity that is indirectly felt in the region due to the large number of workers. In this last stage, important investments have been made in the modernization and expansion of the facilities in docks, piers and workshops, and more environmentally sustainable production processes have been implemented, being pioneers in Spain in the treatment of surfaces with pressurized water. In addition, ASTANDER has become a world reference in the adaptation of ships to the new international regulations with the installation of exhaust gas filters, ballast water treatment plants and the installation of sails to reduce consumption.