قاطـــرة الطلــب العا٠لــي علــى النفــط - OAPEC

Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting CountriesASRY Shows Strong First HalfPerformance, 2011Despite the continued shippingrecession ASRY showed a strongfirst half year performance in 2011,demonstrating the yard’s resilience toremain at the forefront of global shiprepair and maintenance, includingthe demanding offshore oil and gasmarkets. In fact work secured byyard’s dedicated offshore division,ASRY Offshore Services (AOS) wasa major contributor to the BahrainYard’s performance during the firstsix months of 2011.During this period, January to end of June 2011,ASRY repaired a total of 107 vessels coming from boththe Arab and international markets, representing a widevariety of ship types from ULCCs, container vessels,naval craft, offshore jack-up rigs and offshore supportvessels.Unusually for ASRY, whose customer split isusually 50:50 between Arab owners and Internationalowners, the first six months of 2011 saw the mainstay ofbusiness coming from the Arab market with 72 vessels(67.3%), the average value of repairs per vessel wasmuch higher from the International market.Owners from Saudi Arabia repaired a total of29 vessels during the first half of 2011, with VelaInternational Marine drydocking three large tankers:317,129dwt sisterships Aries Star and Pisces Star andthe 301,862dwt Alphard Star, the latter being convertedinto an offshore oil storage vessel.Meanwhile, the National Shipping Co of SaudiArabia/ Mideast ship management dry docked two1996-built, 300,361dwt sister ships, Ghawar andRamlah.The vast majority of work from the Saudi Arabianmarket came from the offshore sector, both for jack-uprigs and support craft, with operators such as HerculesOffshore, Zamil Offshore, China Harbour EngineeringArabia, Ensco and the Saudi Arabian Oil being regularvisitors.Bahrain-based owners repaired a total of 26 vesselsduring the period under review, while five vesselscame from the UAE, seven from Qatar (nearly alloffshore rigs) and three vessels from Kuwait. Onceagain ASRY’s No.1 customer, Kuwait Oil Tanker Co,(KOTC) returned to the yard for repairs to its VLCCfleet, with major repairs being undertaken on Al Salheiaand Kazimah III.US owners once again led the way for the internationalmarket, repairing a total of 12 vessels, the vast majorityof this work coming from offshore jack-up rig operatorssuch as Ensco International, Hercules Offshore, PrideInternational and Rowan. The most demanding job wasthe refit of Rowan’s 224-C Super Gorilla XL class jackuprig Bob Palmer, one of the world’s largest jack-ups,which underwent modifications and upgrading workbefore starting a three year charter to Saudi Aramco atthe end of June.Meanwhile, Maersk Line drydocked two 61,454dwtcontainerships during the early part of 2011: MaerskIowa and Maersk Ohio. Both of these vessels formpart of the US Maritime Administrations (MarAds)Maritime Security Programme Fleet.The first half of 2011 at ASRY was the completionof a major repair contract for the US Navy, with thesignificant hull steel renewal on four 51.8m Cycloneclasspatrol vessels.The first six months of 2011 saw the return ofVLCCV/ULCCs to the Bahrain Yard. Besides theVela International and KOTC vessels drydock, ASRYalso drydocked and repaired the 3027,789wt OlympicLegacy and the 303,184dwt Olympic Loyalty, bothowned by Greece’s Springfield Shipping. A futurefour vessels from the Greek market were also repairedduring the period under review from Seabulk Shipping,Sea World Management & Trading Inc. (two ships) andFree Bulkers SA.It was encouraging to see a number of Dutch ownedvessels repair at ASRY in the the first half of 201. Dutchowners repaired a total of five vessels at the yard in thefirst six months of this year, with three coming from VanOORD Ship Management BV- the 1,594grt cutter suctiondredger Sliedrecht 35 and the two 10,107m3 split hopperbarges Sand Carrier 101 and Sand Carrier 103.21Volume 37 Issue 12