MANAMA: ASRY (Arab Shipbuilding & Repair Yard), the leading shipyard in the Arabian Gulf, has signed a long-term collaborative enabling agreement with Babcock, the UK’s market-leading engineering support services company, to undertake maintenance work on UK Royal Navy warships in the Gulf.

The agreement will cover work from general maintenance to specific projects such as the changing of diesel generators under the Sandown Volvo Generator Programme.  ASRY will deliver the in-theatre engineering support while Babcock provides project management and technical information through a locally based Class Output Management (COM) oversight team, and some specific equipment where required.

ASRY Chief Executive, Nils Kristian Berge, said: “This enabling agreement is another positive sign of ASRY’s acceleration of our Defence sector marine repair programme. Partnering with a global firm of Babcock’s scale and reputation will allow us to provide more efficient support to the Royal Navy, and is in line with the shipyard’s strategy to be the leading navy repair hub in the Arabian Gulf.”

Babcock Warships Managing Director, Mike Whalley, said: “We have contracted ASRY on numerous separate occasions to undertake work to RN warships in the past, and have developed a strong, supportive working relationship which this long-term agreement now secures and cements.  The ability to deliver timely, high quality support in the Gulf region is an important part of Babcock’s role providing forward support to the Royal Navy anywhere in the world and, with the necessary facilities and local marine repair expertise in place, this long-term partnering arrangement with ASRY will further strengthen our ability to provide this support reliably, to the required high standards – something that will become increasingly important with longer deployment periods.”

The agreement between Babcock and ASRY was officially signed in Bahrain on Monday 29 June by Babcock Warships Managing Director Mike Whalley, and ASRY Chief Executive Nils Kristian Berge.