Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Ship Building (ADSB), a regional maritime construction and repair company, has an order book backlog of around Dh1 billion for building naval ships in the next couple of years, its Chief Executive Officer told Gulf News in an interview.

The company has ongoing projects for the UAE navy, UAE’s Critical Infrastructure and Coastal Protection Authority and Kuwait Ministry of Defence.

“Currently we have delivered many vessels to countries throughout the GCC, Asia and Africa, and are building landing crafts and sea keepers to the Kuwait navy,” Dr Khaled Al Mazrouei said.

ADSB’s flagship Baynunah programme, worth approximately Dh3.9 billion, has so far delivered five of six 72-metre corvette class Baynunah vessels to the UAE Navy, with one expected to be delivered by the first quarter of 2017.

Another joint venture project, worth more than Dh850 million, with Damen Shipyard, a dutch based company, is on track to supply two 67-meter offshore patrol vessels to the UAE’s Critical Infrastructure and Coastal Protection Authority. There is also a Dh260 million contract to supply the Kuwait Ministry of Defense with two 64-metre and one 42-metre landing crafts and five composite 16-metre sea keepers which are being built at the company’s facility in Mussafah.

ADSB is also in the process negotiating and finalising more projects in the region, to increase their value of the order book.

“We are collaborating with other overseas shipyards that can build state of the art naval ships, which will in turn transfer new technologies to the region,” Al Marzrouei said.

Floating dock

The company has recently opened its floating dock facility at Mina Zayed as it looks to expand its commercial services, to the shipping industry and oil & gas sectors as well.

The 180-metre-long and 30-metre-wide floating dry dock will allow ADSB to dock vessels up to 180 metres in length, or by comparison almost the length of two football fields, greatly enhancing the company’s service capabilities.

When asked whether there has been any impact due to low oil prices, he said some companies have postponed repairing of their ships due to low revenues.

“We have to diversify and find other ways of generating revenue. The company is supporting itself. We have a healthy cash flow and we are managing without the support of any third party loans.”

Cost cutting

On cost cutting measures, he said in the last two years they reduced their cost by increasing the efficiency and the productivity of the workforce.

ADSB reported annual revenues of Dh790 million for the year 2014, Dh791 million for the year 2015 and the revenue for the year 2016 is expected to be even higher than the previous years, Al Mazrouei said.

“Even though we posted a loss of Dh127.5 million in 2014, we have subsequently made a profit of Dh86.5 million in 2015. We are forging ahead with the same momentum and are expecting to further improve the profitability in the current year as well.”

The shipyard is 10 per cent owned by Abu Dhabi’s government, 40 per cent owned by Mubadala Development Company, and 50 per cent publicly traded on Abu Dhabi’s Securities Exchange.

Factbox: CEO profile

Dr Khaled Al Mazrouei has over 23 years of experience, previously serving as the General Manager of the Fujairah International Airport and the CEO of ADSB since 2013. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics from St Louis University, USA; two Master’s degrees from the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, USA and a Ph.D. in Business Administration, specialising in Marketing Management from the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom.