Subic shipyard acquires new equipment

A tugboat undergoes repair inside Subic Dock’s Auxiliary Floating Drydock Medium-5 (AFDM-5), one of the company’s two dry-docking facilities in the Subic Bay Freeport. Subic Dock recently acquired an AFDL-21, which is smaller than AFDM-5, enabling it to undertake repair services for smaller vessels


SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—A Subic-based company offering vessel-repair services has acquired another dry-docking facility to better serve its growing list of local and foreign customers.

Subic Drydock Corp. (SubicDock) recently purchased a smaller drydock, allowing the company to repair smaller vessels preferred by local shipping operators.

Besides owning the Auxiliary Floating Drydock Medium-5 (AFDM-5), which allows it to fix larger vessels preferred by foreign operators, the company recently purchased the AFDL-21 with a lifting capacity of 1,000 tons.

The new acquisition will allow SubicDock more business flexibility, boosting its efforts to attain industry leadership in the Philippines’ ship-repair sector, Catalino Bondoc, the company’s president, said.

Although the AFDM-5 has enabled SubicDock to compete with ship-repair facilities in the United States, Bondoc said the new acquisition will help the company provide a more comprehensive program of repair and maintenance services, the executive said.

Originally owned by the US Navy, the AFDL-21, which has a length of 200 feet and a beam of 64 feet, was transferred to the Philippine Navy in 1961. In March 1990, it was sold to Malayan Towage and Salvage Corp., the same company that brought the AFDM-5 back from Guam in October.

SubicDock brought the AFDM-5 to its former home here in Subic after it served at the Guam Shipyard since 1992, when the US Navy towed the dry dock to Guam when it pulled out from the former Subic Naval Base.

SubicDock’s P275-million ship- repair venture has been servicing at least three vessels per month ever since it began operations last year.

Bondoc said the dry-dock facility has been attracting a growing list of customers, including vessels owned by the US Navy, the North Korean fishing fleet and Austel Shipping, an Australian firm operating high-speed roll-on, roll-off ferries.

Since its establishment in Subic last year, SubicDock had received a 2001 certification of compliance from the RINA Society (Registro Italiano Novale) of Italy.

The company, he added, is now in the final stages of completing requirements for ISO 9001:2000 certification to assure customers of its world-class capabilities in technical and client-support services, ship repair, customer assurance and on-time product delivery.

Besides its dry-docking facilities, SubicDock also owns a 100-ton floating derrick crane and all the necessary shop facilities and equipment for various operations and services.

The company also offers comprehensive ship repair, conversion and construction, engineering, mechanical and electrical repair, tugboat and barging services, nondestructive testing, welding, painting and coating services, structural fabrication and layout, manufacturing and machining and component refurbishment.

SubicDock also undertakes valves-in shop services, shipboard mechanical and component and valve repairs, governor and injector services, internal-combustion engine services, hydraulic services, piping-system services, heat exchanger and cooler services, air conditioning and refrigeration, insulation, shipwright and woodworking services, electric and electronic services, crane rigging, transportation, maintenance, testing and certification, diving services and occupational health, safety and environmental services.

Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority chairman Feliciano Salonga, who attended the recent launch of the AFDL-21, said SubicDock’s ship-repair facilities will boost Subic’s bid to become a major international maritime center. By Henry Empeño Business Mirror