Bahrain Ship Repairing and Engineering Company (Basrec), which is in its 50th year of operations, said its 2011 full-year profit rose to BD2.6 million ($7 million) from BD2.2 million the previous year.

Last year was a good one for Basrec as its earnings per share jumped to 163 fils from 139 fils last time.

'Ship repair is a very cyclical business and charter prices are very low at present in the wake of too many ships being built in 2008 but we have had a very good year and hope to build on that by developing facilities for larger vessels where there is a lot of demand,' said chief executive Didine Saadi.

'We have steered through some difficult waters and have no doubt emerged the better because of strategic focus, solid growth and transformation despite economic uncertainty.

'Leveraging on our developing expertise we continued to secure orders over the year,' he added.

'Basrec is one of the oldest established ship repair yards in the Middle East,' said chairman Mubarak Jasim Kanoo.

'The company is marking this golden milestone by taking steps to build further on its position as one of the leading ship repair specialists in the region.

'In yet another excellent year, we are pleased to report that this is the fourth consecutive successful year for the company.

'The company continues to show all round improvements in all aspects and performed exceptionally well,' he said.

'Key factors such as excellent geographical location, good logistics, well developed infrastructure, availability of spare parts and service support all contributed to the overall one-stop package that BASREC can offer our customers,' he added.

'Basrec is expected to make a shift in corporate focus moving more towards conversions and refits requiring a higher degree of expertise.

'The intention is to build its reputation in these areas with plans to create additional capacity to cater to a high volume of repair work from local and international ship owners.'

'BASREC wishes to extend the ship repair capabilities by increasing the capacity of the current site by constructing a 70-metre-long finger pier and a 50-metre-long quay,' he added.

'Another major project is being considered by the board,' he said. 'We have approved the appointment of consultants to design and build a new floating dock.'

'The project will be advanced to the stage of inviting tenders from various ship building yards in the Gulf and Far East,' he added. -TradeArabia News Service