Flexibility and expansion are key to ASRY’s success

The 500,000 dwt capacity graving dock was home to eight vessels comprising a jack-up rig, offshore diving support vessel, two hopper barges and four large cargo barges, from owners in Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UK. The vessels undergoing repair included the jack-up rig Foresight Driller V owned by the UK’s Foresight Drilling, the 1,000 dwt offshore diving support vessel Maridive VI owned by Egypt’s Maridive and Oil Services, the 1,900 dwt hopper barges Jin Qui 1 and Kai Tuo 5 owned by Saudi Arabia’s China Harbour Eng Arabia Co.

The second week of 2011 saw No.1 Dock occupied with the drydocking of Kuwait Oil Tanker’s (KOTC) 300,361 dwt Ramlah for a 23 day repair period, 10 of which will be in drydock. KOTC has also stemmed a further two large tankers with ASRY during the first quarter of 2011, i.e. the 310,453 dwt Al Salheia for a 39 day repair period, including 19 days in drydock, followed by the 317,250dwt Kazimah III for a 21 day repair period, including eight days in drydock. KOTC is one of a number of owners who have fleet repair agreements with the Bahrain yard.

Meanwhile, ASRY has just completed another ‘first’, the conversion of a ‘dust-pan’ dredger into a cutter suction dredger. The $8 million project was undertaken on US operator Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co’s Ohio. Planning work on this project started in mid April 2010 with the 86m x 22m dredger arriving in the yard in mid September and the demanding conversion project being successfully completed at the end of December.

As part of the contract ASRY had to fabricate the vessel’s new 40m cutter ladder, spud carriage and A-frame, work that involved more than 1,000 tonnes of new steel. Ohio is now scheduled to start work on a number of civil construction projects in Bahrain.

2011 will be a pivotal year for ASRY and its future, with November seeing the official inauguration of the yard’s new 1.39km repair quay wall, part of a $188 million facilities expansion programme that will enable the yard to face the increased competition for repairs in the Arabian Gulf region from new yards in Oman and Qatar. The first 400m section of this new repair quay is now in service.

Part of the facilities expansion is the provision of four new shipyard tugs, which ASRY is building itself to a design from Singapore’s SeaTech Solutions International. The keels for the first of these 25.8m, 40 tonne bollard pull tugs were laid at the end of 2010 and are scheduled for completion by the end of this year.