MacGREGOR a global group focusing on shipboard cargo flow solutions and services for ship-owners and shipbuilders, is a relatively recent entrant to Al Jadaf following its merger with Otecnor in Dubai and Abu Dhabi based Otecnor Gulf Company, a hydraulic specialist in May 2001. Darko Bogdanovic, Middle East Area Manager of MacGREGOR expressed optimism at the company’s performance following the merger.
Says Bogdanovic, “Our strategy is to penetrate other areas not necessarily related to the company’s traditional marine related business. We like to expand to other areas like offshore and land-based sectors, which our merger with Otecnor is sure to provide. Already this has become evident in the increase in our branch’s business by 70 percent in 2002. The synergy between the two companies has proved good for us. By this acquisition, we shall be disseminating our combined know-how. We have 57 service stations in 26 countries and we can provide service support at all major ports around the world.”
According to Bogdanovic, the company is continuously looking for new acquisitions at the group level. Although there is no specific plan in this direction, the company will maintain Dubai as the centre of operations in the Middle East. Among its regional plans, are expansion into Bahrain, Qatar and the Port of Bander Abbas in the Persian Gulf.
Besides training service engineers to attend to the MacGREGOR products aboard ships, the company is introducing new equipment to determine weather tightness of the cargo holds in vessels by ultra sound methods.
“We are also looking at signing distribution and service
agreements with Original Equipment Manufacturers and component manufacturers. We have reached a global service agreement with the Japanese company Kawasaki Precision Machinery Ltd. As per the deal, MacGREGOR branches will service all ship machinery manufactured by Kawasaki. About 6000 vessels have such equipment on board,” Bogdanovic adds.
Ahmed
Maintenance and Ship Repairs (AMASCO) was
established in 1986, with its original workforce
of only ten men undertaking “ship maintenance
and cleaning work”. Since those early days,
AMASCO has grown in size and reputation. It became
an ISO approved company with LRQA in 1999.
Trevor
Nicholaidis
General Manager, AMASCO
AMASCO
has emerged from being the modest “Maintenance
and Cleaning” company, to being one of the
prominent “Ship Repair and Maintenance”
companies in the Gulf Region. AMASCO’s 350
strong workforce is involved in numerous and
diversified activities, in the oil and gas and
marine industries.
AMASCO has, and still is, expanding its activities
and workforce as a result of the excellent
reputation that it has for high quality
workmanship. AMASCO has been able to increase the
number of ASME qualified welders necessary to
undertake the very demanding standards required
for projects that they are involved within Dubai
Drydocks for their FPSO conversion projects.
The majority of the pipe and fabrication work for
these projects is carried out in Amasco’s Aweer
workshop, whereas the day to day operations
involved in ship and industrial repair work are
controlled from the Head Office at the Al Jadaf
yard. The Aweer yard incorporates an
environmentally friendly blast room and painting
facility, which compliment the considerable amount
of fabrication work being undertaken at present.
AMASCO’s clients include among others, BP, DUBAL,
DEWA, EMARAT, ENOC, SEWA and SHELL. In the
shipping sector, AMASCO’s list of clients
includes those owning or managing VLCCs; and those
owning or managing utility craft such as crew and
supply boats. AMASCO is part of a group of
companies, which includes Ahmed Shipping Agencies
who operate nine crew and supply boats. Between
AMASCO and Ahmed Shipping, a completely
self-sufficient service is offered to the ship
owner/manager. The Diving Section is approved by
almost all of the major Classification Societies
for undertaking under water survey work and under
water shell inserts. The boats offer
transportation for many local agencies, supply of
drinking water and lubs. Ahmed Shipping is
involved with FENDERCARE and also Gulf Transfer
Services for their ship-to-ship oil transfer
operations.
Golden Harbour has entered into an Agency Contract Agreement with Germany based Eucaro Buntmetall Gmbh to stock, distribute and supply their seawater corrosion resistant alloy based products, in the Middle East region. The alloy is called EUCARO 10, which is made of Copper, Nickel, Iron and Manganese and is known for its weldability. It is used for making pipes, tubes and other fittings for the marine and other industries.
Shaikh
Shabbir Shujauddin, President
Golden Harbour Group shakes hands with Heiner Maass,
Managing Director of Eucaro Buntmetall GmbH
Huzaifa Shaikh Shabbir, Managing Director of Golden Harbour and Heiner Maass, Managing Director of Eucaro Buntmetall GmbH signed the deal in Dubai in the presence of Franz-Josef Dicken, Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Speaking on the occasion, Shabbir said, “With this agreement we will be the exclusive dealers of Eucaro products in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Iran, India and Pakistan. The practice of using Aluminium and Brass based products is fast diminishing. We are happy that we are able to stock a relatively new product and we are sure that with more and more companies developing their ship-building capabilities, the market is set to expand rapidly.”
Pacific Technology recently moved into Al Jadaf. The company implements corrosion control and metal repair and protection systems. A.S. Khan, General Manager of the company sees better business prospects after moving to the new premises in January 2003.
“Our main motive of moving into Al Jadaf was to be in close proximity with our clients in the marine industry.
A.S.
Khan, General Manager
Pacific Technology
Our products and services have been approved by most classification societies and are in demand within the marine industry. Hence Al Jadaf is the place to be for prospective business,” he feels.
The company holds agency contracts for several Germany, US and UK based companies. It specialises in Epocast Epoxy Resin chocking systems for mounting engines, reduction gears, cutlass - bearings and LNG/LPG tank mounting systems. It repairs concrete, steel and wood under water and applies corrosion resistant coatings to tanks and other equipment. The company also implements metal repair and floor protection systems.
It has been able to generate business above expectations in the first two months of 2003. “We have surpassed the target estimate for the first quarter in the initial two months itself. So we expect an overall improvement in terms of business throughout the year,” he says.
Over the ten years that it had been active, the company has developed several clients including Dubai Dry Docks, Albwardy Marine Engineering, AMASCO, Grandweld, Interocean, Gulf Cobla, DEWA, Dubai Aluminium and FEWA. Khan insists that most companies engaged in shipbuilding and repair use the company’s services. It works in ports like ASRY in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Doha in Qatar. The services are provided onshore and offshore.
The company is introducing new products to the regional market like Neutra Rust coatings, marine bearings made by UK based Orkot Composites and hot sprays with metal and bronze-aluminium. A stock is maintained at the warehouse to facilitate on time delivery.
Asaker Marine and Shipping are owners, operators / charters and agents with their base in Ajman, UAE providing specialist services in salvage support, towing, oilfield supply and anchor handling. The company recently arranged to tow four fully erect STS cranes from Abu Dhabi, UAE to Chennai Port, India for use at the Chennai Container Terminal.
STS
cranes being towed from Abu Dhabi to Chennai
The initial consignment of two cranes were loaded on to a Flat Top Barge and transported aboard tugboat ‘Sea Diamond -I,’ which departed from Abu Dhabi in mid-November and was delivered at Chennai Port mid-December. The second shipment was placed aboard tugboat ‘Sea Diamond -V,’ which left Abu Dhabi on 3 March 2003 and is expected to reach Chennai on 25 March 2003.
According to K.V. Varghese, Managing Director, “Considering the value and size of the cargo, the job is extremely challenging and can only be carried out by a well experienced crew. Asaker Marine owns the tugboats. We are really happy that the first towage was done successfully and with the help of our crew members and by the grace of god, we expect the same result from our second towage which is on its way to Chennai.”
During 2002, Dubai based boiler and economizer repair specialist Harris Pye Gulf L.L.C. secured major contracts to convert two FPSOs - Atlantic and Mystras at Dubai Drydocks for Monte Carlo’s SBM. The scope of work includes full boiler re-tubing and refurbishment,
Malcolm
Jordan
Managing Director, Harris Pye Gulf L.L.C.
as well as conversion of the combustion and control system to accept gas firing. Work is being done in-house and is scheduled for completion in mid 2003.
Offshore work on FPSOs completed recently includes the Conkouati for CMS Energy in Houston. Work on Bellatrix Voyager is presently ongoing off West Africa for Chevron-Texaco. There are a number of other major offshore refurbishment contracts in the pipeline.
At the beginning of 2003, Harris Pye Gulf L.L.C. were awarded a major contract from MHI Boilers in Japan, to manufacture, supply and install a complete replacement MHI boiler on their behalf. The contract was awarded on the basis of a very tight time frame (60 days) for completion, with manufacture (including drums) being undertaken in Dubai, and installation - commissioning in ASRY.
“The past year has been extremely busy for Harris Pye in both Dubai and Bahrain (ASRY) with traditional boiler repairs and refurbishment, and our customer base continues to expand. Economiser supply and installation is facilitated by Harris Pye economiser manufacturing plant located in Singapore,” says Malcolm Jordan, Managing Director. Harris Pye Gulf L.L.C.
Global Technical Systems offers value-added services to the technology product of Danisat under the Thuraya satellite platform. Ship position (GPS) is available in a blackbox fixed on the vessels. The Thuraya or GSM network carries the positioning data as SMS to a secure datacentre.
N.
Sankar
General Manager,
Global Technical Systems
The information is then integrated with marine charts and made available to members through the Internet. It is available as a monthly leased, service provider model. Major costs of manpower, infrastructure, hardware and software are amortized. The live tracking information would add tremendous value to owners, agents and insurers.
The Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Company operates the system to nearly one third of the globe covering Europe, Africa, Middle East and parts of Asia. The scheduled second and third satellite would cover other waterways.
According to N. Sankar, General Manager of Global Technical Systems, “Satellite based asset management is not a new application of technology in many parts of the world. However, the essence in business is not the technology but its conversion into meaningful user level benefit. This can be achieved through proper understanding of the industry and providing simple, cost effective, tailor made solutions”.
Apart from basic speed, direction and bearings information (with accuracy of upto 10m), the blackboxes can be integrated to provide additional services such as monitoring readings through generic sensors. These sensors may be temperature sensors, movement sensors or simple events like start /stop of the fuel pump switch. The black box also falls in line with new ISPS codes coming into force for all ships to have panic/ hijack alarm buttons working through a wireless remote. Voice communication can be provided with the same blackbox at Thuraya’s rate of USD0.5 to USD1.5 a minute.
Aalborg
Industries A/S, Dubai Branch completed re-tubing
of boilers on the vessel FPSO Thalassa, owned and
operated by the Monaco based company “Single
Buoy Moorings Inc.”
About 50.000 man-hours were spent, in renewing the
20 years old boilers, originally manufactured in
France. All pipes and tubes were replaced with new
ones.
Jeroen
van Riel
General Manager, Aalborg Industries
The
job took three months to complete and was
finalised on time and on budget, just before
Christmas 2002.
For the company, Thalassa was the fourth FPSO re-tubing in recent years and currently it has another order for changing complete super heaters (including the headers) on board the FPSO P-31, owned and managed by Petrobras. This project, which is carried out in conjunction with the Brazil office is taking place off the coast of Rio, while the platform is on station.
According to Jeroen van Riel, General Manager of the Dubai branch, “Another major overhaul was the boilers (Kawasaki SM 45, 45 ton/hr) on board of the vessel Bourgogne, managed by TECTO. Not only were the complete boilers re-tubed, also the complete automation was renewed. In cooperation with our main office the existing (malfunctioning) controls were redesigned with our PLC controlled automation. Turnover has again risen for the fourth year running. We look confidently to the future with increased activities in the land based industry while continuously supporting the needs for the marine after sales,” says van Riel.
Reintjes Middle East is a subsidiary of Reintjes GmbH, Germany, a marine gearbox manufacturer with a vast experience of over 70 years. RME was initially established in 1995 and moved into Al Jadaf in 1997 to provide sales, service and support to the needs of end users in UAE, Gulf, Middle East, Indian sub-continent and Africa as over 3000 Reintjes marine gearboxes are satisfactorily operating in this region. It has in addition developed and built a variety of innovative customised drive solutions. It keeps stock of different supplies primarily related to propulsion systems. It provides support in application engineering pertaining to the selection of a new gearbox, providing technical support, product support.
Weather
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MacGREGOR a global group focusing on shipboard cargo flow solutions and services for ship-owners and shipbuilders, is a relatively recent entrant to Al Jadaf following its merger with Otecnor in Dubai and Abu Dhabi based Otecnor Gulf Company, a hydraulic specialist in May 2001. Darko Bogdanovic, Middle East Area Manager of MacGREGOR expressed optimism at the company’s performance following the merger. 
