Austal establishes global service offering

Many of these contracts involve non-Austal vessels and range from refitting steel offshore support vessels to planned vessel maintenance of high speed aluminium patrol boats. Earlier this year the company announced a vessel maintenance services contract with Oman’s National Ferries Company (NFC) for the maintenance of seven large high speed craft, including two Oman Coast Guard rescue boats. Five of these vessels were not built by Austal.

Austal Service general manager Chris Pemberton said the company’s product offering included contract maintenance, general refit and repair, spare parts, consultancy, ship management support services, and crew familiarisation training.

Austal says that its global supply chain enables it to source quality parts, particularly specialist parts, with quick delivery and at reasonable cost. The past year has seen Austal undertake service-related work all over the world, including Indonesia, Norway, Venezuela, Malaysia, Maldives, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and USA.

Austal recently completed the annual docking of 69m high speed catamaran vehicle ferries Jazan and Farasan owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Performed by Austal personnel at Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Shipyard, the docking included vessel modifications and preventative maintenance.

Austal continues to build a permanent service presence in the Middle East, having established hubs in the Red Sea (Egypt) and in Oman, with a regional office in the UAE (Dubai) to open in coming months.

Demonstrating Austal’s general refit and repair capabilities was the recently completed refit work on 82m, 3,226 dwt steel diving support vessel

Nor Australis

, built by Nor Offshore in Singapore. The project involved sending a team of Austal engineers, naval architects and engineers to Karratha in Australia’s North West. Their work successfully reduced noise and vibration onboard the vessel, resulting in improved working conditions for the crew.