Dubai: Dubai Drydocks, part of Dubai World, will acquire the management of Jadaf Dubai shipyard and integrate their business under one management, a senior official said.

"The process has started. It may be completed when we move to Dubai Maritime City or at some later stage," Jadaf general manager Hamed Mohammad Bin Lahej told Gulf News.

The two entities are owned by the Dubai government and are now part of Dubai World, a new holding company that includes DP World, Nakheel, Istithmar and Jebel Ali Free Zone.

Jadaf, which has been in the ship repair business for 30 years, will move to its new location in Dubai Maritime City, an zone being developed between Port Rashid and Dubai Drydocks. New Jadaf is being built at a cost of Dh2 billion, Bin Lahej said.

Advantages

An industry observer said possible advantages of Jadaf-Drydocks integration would result in better use of support infrastructure, but the two will stick to their core businesses.

"The two companies target two different tiers of the ship repair business and that is not going to change. Jadaf specialises in smaller vessels like crew boats, supply boats and dhows, while Drydocks attracts big tankers, very large crude carriers and ship conversion projects," said Fazel Fazelbhoy, general manager of Nico International.

Jadaf will be located in the industrial section, occupying about two-thirds of 2.2 million square metres of Dubai Maritime City area. Ninety-four per cent of the reclamation work was completed in June.

"Shifting to Dubai Maritime City will be done in phases. The shiplifts will be ready by December 2007 after that we plan to commence operations," Bin Lahej said.

New Jadaf will have vastly improved facilities in terms of technology and size, he said.

There will be two ship-lifts side by side. The larger shiplift will be 140 metres long and 35 metres wide, designed to lift vessels of up to 6,000 tonnes, double the current capacity of 3,000 tonnes. The number of covered and uncovered berths will be 50.

"These are between 100 and 150 metres in length," Bin Lahej said.

At present, only eight of Jadaf's 40 berths are 150 metres in length.

The existing Jadaf complex has 300 companies with about 6,000 staff.

The number of companies is also expected to grow dramatically at New Jadaf.

Dubai Maritime City will have residential units to house at 15,000 workers.

But Bin Lahej said Jadaf's new facilities will be technologically advanced, more environment-friendly and less labour-intensive.

"We are planning to meet the needs of at least next 20 years," he said.