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Abu Dhabi Ports has signed a contract with Gulf Marine Services (GMS) that will see the creation of a new shipyard facility at Mina Zayed. GMS will use the yard to construct and maintain its fleet of offshore support vessels that serve the region’s oil and gas industry.
Abu Dhabi Ports will lease the new facility to GMS for a period of three years. GMS, founded in Abu Dhabi in 1977 and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2014, is the largest operator of self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESVs), also known as jackup barges, in the world.
The company’s construction and maintenance yard is currently located in Mussafah, Abu Dhabi. The relocation to Mina Zayed is expected to bring substantial benefits to GMS’ business and clear advantages for its clients. The new site is double the size, increasing the yard to 42,500 ft2. This larger capacity will allow GMS to bring subcontracted fabrication work in-house, generating cost savings for both GMS and its clients. The location is operationally more efficient, being closer to the channel, with access to the sea requiring just one day’s passage instead of up to six days required from Mussafah due to tidal conditions.
The move will be phased between now and March this year, when the company’s latest newbuild vessel, GMS Sharqi, is scheduled for completion at the Mina Zayed site. GMS’ head office will remain in Mussafah and the yard there will continue to be used for supplementary purposes.
GMS has recently been very busy at its current yard, having increased its SESV fleet size from 9 to 13 vessels since 2014. By the end of 2016 the company will have added another two vessels.
Duncan Anderson, chief executive of GMS, says, “We were searching for a new location that would allow us to continue our business strategy to grow our fleet and operations and to make further improvements to our ship building process, while offering competitive and flexible offshore support solutions to our national and international oil and gas clients. The first class facilities at our new Mina Zayed site will allow us to do just that, and there is excellent potential for our future operational requirements.”
