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ADSB eyes GCC Navy contracts
posted on 30/04/2002
Abu Dhabi Ship Building Company (ADSB) is offering its capability of repairing, refitting, upgrading and building new naval vessels to more navies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states after successfully completing high quality, value added contracts for the UAE, Qatari and Yemeni naval forces. ADSB, in co-operation with France's Constructions Mecaniques de Normandie (CMN), is bidding for a multi-million dollar contract of the Kuwait Navy involving the refit of two vessels and the upgrade of their combat systems. The two vessels - the 57-meter Istiqlal and the 45-meter Sambouk - have been part of Kuwait Navy's fleet since the 1980s and were built by Germany's Luerssen Werft, according to an ADSB press release.
Kuwait's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Hamad Al Sabah, visited ADSB's facilities in Mussafah on April 2. Sheikh Jaber, who was accompanied by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Information and Culture, held discussions with ADSB officials on a number of potential projects for the Kuwait Navy, including the upgrade of existing vessels and the construction of sophisticated new warships. The Kuwait Navy contracts are similar to the jobs completed by ADSB for the UAE Navy, which saved the UAE government millions of dollars by having the contracts carried out at home rather than awarding them to shipyards abroad - which was the norm before the establishment of ADSB.
The company completed the Dh300 million (US$81.7 million) refit of the UAE Navy's six 45-meter Baniyas Class patrol boats in September 2000, and is currently upgrading their combat and shipboard systems under a separate contract worth more than AED 184 million (US$50 million) contract. For the Qatar Navy, ADSB completed repair works on a naval warship and carried out a survey for possible refits, which may be carried out in the near future, while for the Yemen Navy it completed the refit of three vessels
The US$50 million expansion has increased the total area of the shipyard to 175,000 square meters from 50,000 square meters at the time of its inception in 1996. It has given ADSB three new ship repair dry berths of 1,700 square meters each, a 70-meter quay wall for new ship construction, and outfitting and testing facilities with a total of 320 meters of wet berthing capability. It has also added two 2,700-square meter construction halls which are serviced by heavy lift overhead cranes one for building naval vessels and the other for commercial ship construction.
The expansion also saw the commissioning of a new Syncrolift Shiplift comprising two 85-meter shiplift piers, one outfitted for ship repair and the other for berthing and transfer system, making ADSB capable of building and repairing vessels of up to 2,000 dwt and 85 meters in length. This has enabled the shipyard to win more contracts from the UAE Navy. The new contracts include a Dh110 million (US$30 million) job for the Navy's Ghannatha project, which entails the construction of 12 Amphibious Transport Boats (ATB's) of 23 meters in length to transport combat troops at high speeds, and a Dh40 million (US$10.9 million) contract for building three 64-meter landing craft.
In 2001, ADSB made a net profit of Dh 9.1 million (US$2.5 million), up 102.2 percent from Dh 4.5 million (US$1.2 million) in the previous year. Total contract revenues went up by 50.8 percent to AED 133.5 million (US$36.4 million), while total assets grew by 4.3 percent to AED 225.3 million (US$61.4 million). The company now has more than 15,000 UAE national shareholders and its market capitalisation stands at more than 459 million (US$125 million). ADSB was set up by the UAE Offsets Group (UOG) in 1996 as a joint-stock company with a paid-up capital of AED 175.2 million (US$47.7 million). The company is owned 50 percent by UAE nationals, who were offered shares through an initial public offering (IPO), 20 percent by the Abu Dhabi government, while Newport News of the US owns the remaining 30 percent. (The Emirates News Agency, WAM)
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