Page 42: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2013)

42 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News ? APRIL 2013 OFFSHOREhighly regulated industry, both from a ship operations point of view as well as a ship repair point of view. In addition, the technology no longer fascinates me as much as it used to. It has become much more clinical, much more automated, much more efÞ cient. You don?t get the same engineering and technical problems that you used to. En-gines are highly efÞ cient, and will run for many more hours without problems. They are not like the older engines that had to be more regularly maintained. The technical side doesn?t have the same fascination for me that it used to.(I guess what it boils down to is) the scope of the repair is greatly reduced on ships. The nature of the repairs that need to be done is almost predictable on ships. Technology (the advance of large tank- ers and containerships) has changed the number of vessels and the type of repairs. To be quite honest with you, there?s not a lot of what you could compare 50 years ago to today. It?s all changed completely. How have regulations changed your business? We?ve had to adopt the regula- tions the industry is demanding, and to a large extent, it has been driven by ship- owners. Shipowners have had to comply (with a wide variety of rules), and when they come to the yard, they expect to see similar standards. That?s not a bad thing at the end of the day. Geographically, from where do you get your business? Business is traditionally 50/50 Arab/International, today leaning more toward Arab market, which are carry- ing their own cargo. Arab owners seem to have more money to spend at the mo-ment.And you have a good relationship with U.S. companies. Bahrain has the free trade agreement with the States, and there seems to still be a lot of U.S. ß ag vessels in and out of the Gulf, mainly with sup-port of Iraq, and many owners are taking advantage to repair outside of the U.S. We have seen a slow increase in military work, too.Whether it is Ballast Water Manage- ment Systems or Emission Technolo- gies, where do you see the near term drivers for your business? Commercial ship repair will improve. It has to. Over the next two or three years, owners are going to be faced MR #4 (42-49).indd 42MR #4 (42-49).indd 424/2/2013 4:12:53 PM4/2/2013 4:12:53 PM