The Concarneau-based Piriou Group has established a repair facility in La Réunion to provide services for its clients based on the island, operating in the Indian and Southern Oceans.
According to Piriou managing director Vincent Faujour, Piriou has been evolving and developing, and this latest step in setting up Piriou Réunion follows the establishment this year of Piriou Senegal in Dakar and Piriou Morocco in Casablanca, and he added that there are two more locations still to be announced in Africa over the next six months.
‘Piriou Réunion is the visible part of a broader strategy of being where our customers need us,’ he said.
‘In four years, Piriou aims to have, in addition to our operational locations in France, Vietnam, Nigeria and Algeria, a dozen other locations around the world. Piriou Réunion is the pilot project for these and after twenty-five years of activity in Réunion already, it was the logical step to take.’
Speaking at the recent christening of Comata longliner Île de la Réunion II, built at at the Piriou yard in Vietnam, he voiced his appreciation for the support of local partner Laurent Virapoulé in establishing Piriou Réunion, for the company’s customers in the region who have stuck with the yard over the years, and the Port of Réunion and the local authorities, who made every effort to make the new facility a reality in record time.
Piriou Réunion has 500 square metres of fully-equipped workshop space at is disposal, along with ten permanent staff, a number of additional temporary workers and apprentices. Partnerships with suppliers such as Yanamr and Caterpillar are also brought to the venture, plus the extensive experience and expertise available from the parent company in France.
‘Here in Réunion we aim to set up a floating dock as soon as possible for carrying out maintenance of civil or military vessels of up to 100 metres and 4000gt,’ Vincent Faujour said.
‘This major step in the development of Piriou Réunion will create a hundred new jobs in the area. But this is also part of a broader marine repair strategy. There is scope for a number of operators in the Indian Ocean, in this context, the competition strengthens everyone, and it improves the quality of service to our shipowner customers.’
25-year history
Piriou has a relationship with Réunion going back twenty-five years to the rebuild job done in 1993 on Kerguelen de Trémarec for the Mousquetaires group, followed by tugs Mafate and Cilaos, and more recently Boluda. Sapmer’s longliner Croix du Sud was jumboised in 1999, and subsequently five longliners for toothfish were delivered in 2001 and 2002 to Comata, Sapmer, Cap Bourbon and Armement des Mascareignes, plus the pioneering diesel-electric longliner Saint André for Armement Pêche Avenir in 2009.
In 2011 Piriou handled the redesign of naval patrol vessel Le Malin, followed by longliner Cap Kersaintin 2016 and l’Ile de la Réunion II this year.
