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The shipyard repaired 238 vessels up to September 2011 including 27 ULCC, 16 VLCC, 82 oil tankers, 22 bulk carriers, 54 cargo vessels, 2 navy vessels and 36 vessels of various other types. The vessels belonged to major ship owners including BP shipping, NYK Ship Management, MOL Tankship Management, Shell International Trading & Shipping Company, Shipping Corporation of India, NITC, NPCC, ADNATCO-NGSCO, and Great Eastern Shipping Company.

Refurbishment of semi-submersible crane vessel Hermod belonging to Dutch company Heerema Marine Contractors was undertaken during the first quarter of 2011. Container vessel Lissy Schulte had extensive steel renewal and new electrical cables were installed and commissioned. In addition, major pipe, mechanical and hydraulic work was carried out. Self-elevating unit GPS Producer 1 was repaired at the yard. The shipyard designed, supplied and installed protection system in the ballast tanks of the mat and external hull and a subsea spacer frame was fabricated and installed. Samho Crown, a tanker underwent repair with blasting and painting of hull, overhaul of main engine and various pumps and valves were overhauled.

The ship-lifts at Dubai Maritime City did brisk business during 2011. The facility has two ship-lifts with capacity 3,000t and 6,000t. The former saw 851 docking operations, while 163 lifts were carried out with the latter.

FPSO Firenze sailed from the yard in July 2011 and the conversion project was one of the most successful in terms of safety of operations. A wide range of enhancements and installations were carried out on the 246.9m vessel. An external turret was installed, new steel structures such as module supports, pipe racks were built and production and power generation modules were installed using the yard’s 2,000t floating crane.

FSRU Toscana is being converted from LNG carrier Golar Frost into the first weather-vaning FSRU. It is claimed to be one of the most sophisticated conversion projects undertaken by the Dubai yard. It is being carried out for Saipem and will be delivered to OLT (Offshore LNG Toscana), a company operating in the Italian gas industry. The yard is also converting FPSO BW Athena, which has been targeted as an ‘Operational Excellence’ pilot project. The vessel was cut into two and an additional block was fabricated and inserted.

New DMC facility

Dubai Maritime City (DMC), said to be the world’s first purpose-built maritime centre, announced that ship repair and maintenance company Goltens has broken ground for a new office and workshop facility in DMC.

The company recently laid the foundation stone for the construction of facilities dedicated to building and repairing ships. Goltens is under a long term ground development agreement with DMC for two plots within the DMC measuring about 23,000m² for a lease period of 25 years.

The new Goltens Dubai site will be twice the size of the company’s present Dubai facility, with a footprint of 10,000m² and an office block of 2,000m². The workshop is designed to efficiently serve the marine and industrial markets in the Middle East, on similar lines to other workshops built by Goltens over the last four years in China, Rotterdam, Vietnam, Mumbai and Jeddah.

“The Middle East marine repair market is expected to grow significantly medium to long term and Goltens Dubai will for the foreseeable future be a large hub for the Middle East and we especially see a future growth within our specialist core disciplines,” said Paul Friedberg, president, Goltens Worldwide Services.