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Middle East’s biggest dry-dock in Iran?

Iran Materials 12 July 2013 13:48 (UTC +04:00)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a number of projects during his visit to Hormozgan province on Thursday
Middle East’s biggest dry-dock in Iran?

Dalga Khatinoglu, Trend Agency's Iran Service Head

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a number of projects during his visit to Hormozgan province on Thursday. Amongst the projects unveiled was a dry-dock described as being the largest in the Middle East by Iranian media.

Dry dock is a structure able to contain a ship and to be drained or lifted so as to leave the ship free of water with all parts of the hull accessible for repairs, painting, etc.

"The dry dock can accommodate 300,000 ton tankers up to 370 metres long, 80 metres wide and 14.5 metres high, in addition to 140,000-cubic metre LNG carriers with a length of 470 metres, a width of 80 metres and a height of 14.5 metres," Press TV reported.

Iran is already able to repair ships of up to 80,000 dwt (dead weight tons).

The Mehr News agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying that building the dry dock cost $433 million.

Currently, there are three dry docks at Dubai's Drydocks World Company in the complex with capacities of 350,000 dwt, 500,000 dwt and one million dwt.

The shipyard is spread over 200 hectares and has a 350m wide entrance channel and repair berths of about 2400m. It has a total fabrication capacity of 5000t.

The official website of this company says 'the facility on average handles 350 vessels in a year most of them ULCCs (Ultra Large Crude Carriers) and VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers). It has completed 25 years of operation in 2008. The shipyard has repaired over 6600 vessels so far'.

Bahrain also has a dry-dock in the complex with a capacity of 500,000 dtw.

Meanwhile, Iranian industry, mines, and trade minister Mehdi Ghazanfari told Fars News agency that 12 and 18 large vessels respectively should be repaired in the next two years. If five ships are repaired annually, remarkable amount of foreign currency income will be gained, he added.

Ahmadinejad said that the projects in total cost 22 trillion rials which is about $890 million based on the Tehran Forex Centre's USD exchange rate of 24,700 rials including plans to double shipment capacity for minerals and metals at the Kahlij-e Fars Special Economic Zone to 12 million tons resulting in a boost for output at the Hengam oilfield from 16,000 barrels per day to 30,000 bpd and a dry-dock project.

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