Sea Views: UAE speeds boat registration

With the high-paced development of marinas and water-based activities in the UAE, the leisure boat industry is rapidly expanding and with this has come the need for a speedier regulatory process in the registration of small craft.

The Marine Affairs Department has endorsed the use of approved, private survey companies that will inspect vessels work previously carried out by the UAE Coastguard.

For UAE-flagged boats, the process will entail application to the Marine Affairs Department with passport copy, proof of ownership (bill of sale) and sponsor's letter of no objection.

Inspections will then be arranged with one of the approved companies and on successful completion of this survey the UAE Coastguard will issue the hull number for the boat (i.e. 'DP' number in Dubai) and the Marine Affairs Department will issue the registration certificate.

Non UAE-flagged vessels to be operated from UAE marinas will undergo a similar process, however, the final document will be a UAE navigation licence valid for one year.

Qatar Gas Transport Company (Nakilat) has signed a contract with two South Korean shipbuilders to construct the world's LNG carriers at a cost of $2.5 billion, according to a newspaper report.

The move is part of Nakilat's strategy to acquire a total of 61 LNG vessels worth $16 billion by 2010.

Nakilat announced that it has ordered three 'Q-max' LNG carriers, each with a capacity of 265,000 cubic metres, from Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine, and another three from Samsung Heavy Industries.

The report added that the carriers are to be the largest in the world in terms of capacity. However, in terms of ship size they will be slightly smaller than VLCCs (very large crude carriers).

Subject to approval from the Federal Maritime Commission and starting from Shanghai on June 21, Dubai and Hong Kong based Emirates Shipping Line is to launch a service called Asia Gulf Express that will link Asia to the United States and the Caribbean.

Chairman and CEO of Emirates Shipping Line Vikas Khan said, "The service will link East Asia to the major commercial and trading hubs in the US Gulf ports."

Emirates Shipping Line will provide two 3,000 TEU ships it is chartering for the AGX service and seven other 3,000 TEU ships are to be deployed by Gold Star Line, its partner on the service.

Rotation will be: Shanghai, Ningbo, Busan, Colon (Panama), Kingston (Jamaica), Tampa (USA), Mobile (USA), Houston (USA), Kingston, Shanghai.

Meanwhile in another development, the company has opened a subsidiary company on the mainland of China known as Emirates Shipping Agencies (China).

In a major thrust towards increasing its fleet and enhancing its liner services, the Shipping Corporation of India has invited bids for four container ships.

Exim India said the recent tender invites technical bids from experienced shipyards for two vessels of about 5,000 TEU each, the last date for submission being June 30.

A senior SCI official said orders for the vessels are likely to be placed in August, with delivery to be effected by 2009-10.

They will be deployed on SCI's Europe service, with the smaller capacity vessels to be shifted to the American service, he said.

Meanwhile, Greatship (India) Ltd a wholly-owned subsidiary of GE Shipping, has signed a Memorandum of Agreement to acquire two modern, mid-sized offshore supply vessels that are expected to join the company's fleet during the second quarter of 2006-07 and second half of 2006-07, respectively. This brings its total orderbook figure to four OSVs two newbuildings and two secondhand.

The writer is a Dubai-based marine consultant.