Maritime & Energy Focus: Middle East Shipbuilding

Four of these vessels will be mini cargo ships of 8,000 deadweight tonnage each, from the Cochin Shipyard. Cochin (also known as Kochi) is in southwest India’s coastal Kerala state and has been a port since 1341, but over the past several decades the shipyard has become the most modern in India. Two of them will be a 60-meter buoy tender vessel and a 50-meter pilot station vessel built by the Colombo Dockyard. Sri Lanka’s largest shipbuilding and repair center, based in the country’s capital, has been in operation since 1974.  Four more will be “GRAND42-MAX”, the 41-meter crew boats designed and built by Grandweld in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This shipyard is developing into one of the region’s most versatile establishments, designed with premium green building technologies and standards.

Middle East Shipbuilding

With a well-established regional office located right in the heart of Dubai, Zenitel is ideally positioned to serve the new, emerging and established markets in the Middle East, India and Sri Lanka. 

The UAE is a federation of seven emirates, including Abu Dhabi (the capital) and Dubai. The largest city is Dubai, which developed a deep-water free port shortly after the UAE was established. Well positioned on one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, the city continues to be a serious player in the shipbuilding and ship repair industries. Abu Dhabi is the largest emirate by area and also has a massive deep-water container port at Khalifa.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is a political and economic alliance of six Middle Eastern countries—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. The GCC region holds 40 per cent of the world’s oil reserves and 25 per cent of its natural gas reserves. Centrally positioned in the Gulf, Dubai generates significant business in servicing the offshore oilfields, including supply and support vessels. The GCC Leadership has been very visionary in developing the Middle East shipbuilding industry, not only in UAE but also surrounding Gulf countries. 

Zenitel - transformative technology

Against this dynamic background of commerce and shipbuilding, Zenitel has an equally dynamic array of products and technologies to serve every marine requirement. Whether the vessels are large or small, whether they are designed to span the globe in international waters or operate regionally in coastal waters, Zenitel has the experienced staff and time-tested systems to serve every critical onboard communications and safety need. 

Zenitel’s strength is providing integrated security communications for the harshest environments. In their traditional offshore maritime and energy markets this means icy cold temperatures and furious winter storms. In the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, the opposite is true, although storms that can cause significant onshore devastation and damage ships are fortunately very rare in the Gulf. Summers are extremely hot, with the conditions exacerbated by high humidity. Heat index values can reach over 140°F (60 °C). Zenitel’s proprietary intercom, public address (PA), general alarm (GA) and two-way radio systems can handle Mother Nature, hot or cold, with their fully integrated communications platforms.

Among the versatile next-generation products and systems, which Zenitel has supplied for these and other vessels, are interesting new technologies, where the interface between critical systems such as PAGA, intercom, two-way radio, IPTV and CCTV is becoming standard.  

In today’s transformative technology environment the need to efficiently and securely exchange information between marine vessels, offshore installations and onshore operations centers in the offshore energy and autonomous vessels markets is paramount. Zenitel’s solutions fulfill each market’s specific safety communications needs and comply fully with international standards and regulations.

Vessel Fact Boxes