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 Three
maritime majors have entered into a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) to establish a Joint Venture (JV)
to develop a vessel maintenance and repair facility on
the Caspian Sea Coast of Kazakhstan.
Dubai based Nico International, a subsidiary of the
Topaz Energy and Marine Group owned by Renaissance
Services SAOG, a publicly listed Omani Company; Almaty
based Caspian Services Inc. (CSI) and the national
marine company of Kazakhstan, Kazmortransflot JSC (KMTF)
signed the MoU at the Seatrade Middle East Maritime
exhibition being held at Dubai World Trade Centre from
December 4-6. The facility is to be constructed on the
grounds of the marine base currently under development
by CSI at the port of Bautino in Kazakhstan.
This multi-million state of the art facility will be
designed to provide both dry docking and floating
repair capabilities to the full range of vessels
operating in the Caspian Sea up to a maximum 60 meters
in length and 600 tons ‘lightship’. The facility will
also have the capability to dry berth eight vessels at
any one time. Nico International will develop and
operate the facility on behalf of the JV.
The General Director of KMTF said: “Participation in
this joint venture shows that there is great potential
for the company as a whole and also demonstrates that
the enterprise is committed to providing services at
the same level of international maritime companies.
This enterprise will make a huge contribution to the
development of ship repair services and will help with
the development of the local staff by bringing
valuable knowledge and experience in this new industry
into Kazakhstan.”
Nico is a Dubai based international ship repair and
boat building company with 30 years experience in the
industry. With 1200 employees and operations in four
countries Nico operates eight companies dedicated to
the full spectrum of ship repair. Nico recently
inaugurated a new marine workshop in Bautino which is
staffed by Kazakh marine engineers and supervised by
skilled Nico personnel
Nico General Manager, Fazel A. Fazelbhoy stated: “In
culmination of a year of achievements beyond horizons,
we are excited at the prospect of setting up the first
international level ship repair facility in
Kazakhstan. We have already trained 12 Kazakh
graduates from the Marine Academy in Aktau, Kazakhstan
here in our workshops in Dubai and are now looking to
further expand our horizons to the Caspian Sea. Our
sister company BUE Kazakh operates over 40 vessels and
this is a logical extension of our service and
investment commitment to a rapidly developing oil
economy.”
Caspian Services, Inc. is an oilfield service company
providing a broad range of services in the Caspian Sea
region of western Kazakhstan. The Company provides
geophysical and seismic data acquisition and
interpretation services; maintains a fleet of vessels
that it commissions to oil and gas exploration
companies engaged in exploration and development
activities in the north Caspian Sea and other oilfield
services such as lodging and desalinated water in the
Port of Bautino. The Company maintains corporate
offices in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Aktau, Kazakhstan and
Salt Lake City, Utah
John Scott, Chief Operating Officer of CSI, commenting
on the MoU noted: “This agreement is an illustration
of the growing demand for marine repair and
maintenance services in Kazakhstan’s sector of the
Caspian Sea. It also highlights the strategic
importance of our marine base project at Bautino for
the offshore oil industry’s ongoing development. This
JV facility, which will have a long term lease with
us, is the first ‘tenant’ for our base and we are
pleased to be working with Nico International and
Kazmortransflot JSC.”
National Maritime Shipping Company "Kazmortransflot" (KMTF)
is joint-stock company and was established on December
4, 1998 by the decree of Kazakhstani government. The
stakeholders of KMTF are National Holding “Samruk”
which owns 50% starting from October of the current
year and the “National Company “KazMunayGas” JSC which
also owns 50%. The main goal of KMTF is the
development of national commercial fleet and
organization of international sea transportations of
domestic cargoes by own forces.
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