Bahrain shipyard ASRY reports a “huge” increase in demand since the end of 2021. All of its three drydocks now have extensive forward looking order books that extend at least to the fourth quarter of 2023, and in some cases even beyond. This represents a rapid turnaround in prospects for the yard over a relatively short period of time.
There are two main reasons for this upturn in demand for docking services at ASRY. The primary one is the limitation of capacity at Chinese shipyards, due to Covid restrictions, and the consequent overspill of shipowners’ drydocking requirements into the Middle East, and other regions. On top of this, there is increased pressure for environmental retrofits to meet IMO regulatory requirements, especially as the ballast water treatment system deadline gets closer.
Projects have come primarily from long-term partners of ASRY, although some new business has been secured. ASRY also highlights a trend towards large scale repair and upgrade contracts with the yard recently completing a number of projects with work scopes in excess of US$5 million each.
This year ASRY has completed life extension works on the dredger Rotterdam, following on from the conversion of the FSO Rawabi Integrity, and a major cargo capacity increase on the containership Maersk Atlanta, both undertaken in the fourth quarter of 2021. The yard’s success in attracting major contracts looks set to continue in 2022 and beyond, with for example the floating dock Mishrif recently arriving at the Bahrain yard for major repair works commissioned by the Kuwait shipyard, Heisco.
To ensure the yard is able to meet the demand surge, significant infrastructure and equipment investments have been made in recent times, and more are planned. Over the past two years the company has upgraded and modernised many of its workshops, which are some of the biggest in the Middle East. There has also been a focus on digitalising workflow to connect these workshops with 3D modelling and CAD operations. According to ASRY, this particular initiative is now bearing fruit in the form of quicker project turnaround times and faster deliveries.
Additionally, the yard has acquired new equipment, including welding machines, lathes, a fleet of cherry pickers and LED lighting rigs. The latter has generated significant productivity gains by enabling longer night shift operations and improving the yard’s efficiency. ASRY has also invested in upgrading and maintaining its yard cranes.
Furthermore, infrastructure upgrades at ASRY have included steps to improve the efficiency of power and water systems. Capacitor banks have been installed in all transformers and switch gears, reducing power consumption by around 20%.
In the digital space, ASRY last year signed a contract with US-based Infor for a new cloud-based ERP system, which will run on Amazon Web Services (AWS), with the aim of delivering high performance, scalability and security, to replace the existing ERP system. Deployment of this system is already well underway with a phased implementation schedule ready for roll-out this year. Division by division, ASRY will go live with the system, creating what at the company calls a “cascade of modernisation across the yard.”
