Esnaad, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), said it has awarded a Dh60 million ($16.3 million) contract to Abu Dhabi Ship Building (ADSB) for the maintenance of its fleet of offshore support vessels.

Esnaad, whose business includes marine services and oil field services, said it has floated a tender for dry-docking, which was won by ADSB in a competitive bidding process involving several other shipyards from the UAE.

'Esnaad has a fleet of 37 vessels and six new vessels will be pressed into service next year...our fleet is expanding,' Al Qubaisi. 'The more the number of vessels, more the dry-docking we have to do,' Esnaad's general manager, Darwish A. Al Qubaisi was quoted as saying in the Gulf News.

Dry docking involves pulling the vessel out of water and carrying out extensive all-round maintenance and repair works.

'It takes 40-50 days for a vessel's dry-docking,' said Al Qubaisi during a press conference at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec-2008).

Under the terms of the contract, ADSB will perform all of the dry-dockings for the next three years at its yard in Musaffah, Abu Dhabi. The two companies have been working together for the past three years in a similar arrangement.

Long-term maintenance contracts allow for greater efficiencies for both parties, enabling them to plan dry docking of ships well in advance, without having to go through the process of separate tendering for each individual job.

ADSB has similar arrangements with another Adnoc subsidiary, Irshad, which operates Abu Dhabi's oil terminals, as well as the UAE Navy, the UAE coastguard and the UAE Critical National Infrastructure Authority.

'ADSB's shipyard is just half a mile away from Esnaad, so it's convenient for us. Earlier, we used to send our vessels to Dubai for dry docking,' said Al Qubaisi.

Esnaad owns and operates a professionally-designed strategic logistic support base at Musaffah, which extends over 1.4 million square metres, designed to meet the current and future needs of Abu Dhabi's oil and natural gas sector.