14 October 2002

Press Release : Pan-United Shipyard Completed  Lengthening of Jumbo Dredger – Pearl River

Pan-United Shipyard Pte Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pan-United Corporation Ltd, a public listed company in Singapore, is proud to announce the successful lengthening of the Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger, "Pearl River".  The vessel, when built in 1994, was one of the world's biggest and most advanced trailing suction hopper dredgers.

Pearl River was redelivered to its owner, Dredging International from Belgium, on the scheduled date.  This ship conversion project, completed at a contract value of about $12.8 million, involved mainly the lengthening of the vessel by 37.80 metres, thereby increasing its hopper capacity by 17,000 cubic metres to 24,124 cubic metres and also increasing pay load from 24,500 tonnes to 35,000 tonnes.

The extension block weighing some 1,800 tonnes, was constructed and pre-fabricated with outfitting, piping and electrical systems prior to the arrival of Pearl River at our Singapore yard.  The vessel was then “cut” into two halves in the floating dock; one half was then pulled apart to allow the insertion of the extension block.   The insertion process was done in two sections with the aid of a heavy lift barge with a crane capacity of some 1,500 tonnes.

The project also involved the extension and commissioning of ship’s piping and electrical systems as well as general maintenance and repair works such as renewal of hopper frames, complete renewal of dredge pipes and overhauling of reduction gears.

Pan-United Shipyard has earned for itself a niche in such specialized jumboisation. Its track record in lengthening projects included jumbo ferry, fishing boats, diving support vessels, accommodation barges for offshore use and oil tankers.

“In today’s market, sailing distances between burrow and reclamation area continue to increase.   Therefore, the stress on transport capacity increases, and hence the focus on gain in pay-load and hopper volume.  This challenge – increasing the productivity on longer dredging cycles – is met by the lengthening of the vessel.  We are very satisfied with Pan-United Shipyard’s performance in meeting our requirements of on-time delivery”, said Jan Gabriel, Project Manager of Dredging International.

Pan-United operates two shipyard facilities, one in Singapore and the other in Batam, to handle vessels up to 100,000 deadweight tonnes.  Both yards are ISO 9001 accredited with capabilities in shiprepair, shipbuilding and shipconversion.

Pan-United Shipyard forms part of the Group’s interests in Marine and Engineering, one of its four core business groups.  The Group’s other related core business groups are Shipping; Industrial and Trading; and Port.

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