Drydocks looks beyond offshore marine sector

SHIPYARD giant Drydocks World-SE Asia is looking for business beyond the offshore and marine sector to keep its four yards busy, says chief executive Denis Welch. Although the offshore and marine sector will continue to grow in the long term, the worldwide economic slide and credit squeeze has made it difficult to secure new orders for rigs and related equipment.
As consultancy International Maritime Associates noted in a recent report: 'The market for new floating production systems has frozen as a result of the abrupt downturn in the global economy. Over the past quarter no orders have been placed.
This is the first time since 1996, when IMA began tracking the floating production sector, that no orders have been placed during a reporting quarter.'
But Dubai-owned Drydocks is not sitting on its hands and hoping for the best. Mr Welch is thinking out of the box - and looking at new lines of business he can pursue with the facilities and skills the company has.
'We're looking for opportunities to diversify - not in a radical sense, but looking for some iterations on what we do at the moment,' he says.
For a start, Drydocks is well placed to manufacture industrial plant modules and alternative energy devices such as windmills and supporting structures.
Renewable energy alone offers huge opportunities. For example, China and India are modernising rapidly and will require plant and equipment as they try to go greener.
Mr Welch is confident there are openings for Drydocks - and aims to bring in about 20 per cent of turnover from new lines of business such as renewable energy in the near term.
'The market is potentially enormous,' he says, as policy-makers in Vietnam, Japan and elsewhere in Asia add to the strong impetus already present in the US and Europe.
He is on the lookout for opportunities to tie up with other specialists with the expertise to work on such projects, for which Drydocks could fabricate parts - such as pylons and other sub-sea structures for wind power generation projects, for example.
But as Drydocks looks to non-traditional areas, there is still work to be had in the traditional marine and offshore sector. There is continuing demand on the support services side of the offshore segment. 'There is a market for a huge number of specialist support craft, especially as fields get more mature,' Mr Welch notes.
There is also fleet replacement, as many workhorse anchor-handling tugs are getting old, he says. The average age of the global offshore support fleet is 18.5 years.
Other areas of interest for Drydocks include interesting projects by small entrepreneurial companies that require advanced design facilities. For instance, Drydocks has had enquiries about working with a Dutch company that has a radical method of providing heavy lift transport.
Mr Welch, who will be one of the speakers at a session on shipbuilding and conversions at the Sea Asia 2009 Conference, is confident that Asia has a major role to play in the world shipping and marine industry.
And he is equally confident that Drydocks will play a major part in this growth - even as it looks for extra business in other spheres.