Na­tion­al En­er­gy (for­mer­ly the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T) is dry dock­ing its ves­sels in Suri­name, a state­ment on the com­pa­ny's Web site said yes­ter­day."In keep­ing with statu­to­ry guide­lines and to en­sure that Na­tion­al En­er­gy con­tin­ues to main­tain its flag-state and class cer­ti­fi­ca­tion the com­pa­ny is re­quired to dry-dock its ves­sels pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly," the com­pa­ny said.The first ves­sel, NEC Em­press, be­gan its sched­uled spe­cial sur­vey dry-dock­ing in May and con­tin­ued through June. Dry-dock­ing is done every two and a half years in ac­cor­dance with a set sched­ule to guar­an­tee Na­tion­al En­er­gy's con­tin­ued qual­i­ty ser­vice.

Over a pe­ri­od of eight weeks the dry-dock­ing ser­vice for NEC Em­press was pro­vid­ed by con­trac­tor, Suri­name Dry­dock and Ship­build­ing Com­pa­ny SA, at the dock-yard in Para­mari­bo Suri­name."This sched­uled dry-dock is very crit­i­cal as the ves­sel has com­plet­ed ten years of ser­vice and both aqua­mas­ter thrusters (AQM) need to be re­moved from the ves­sel and com­plete­ly over­hauled by cer­ti­fied Rolls Royce en­gi­neers, the orig­i­nal equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­er of the unit. This is the first time Na­tion­al En­er­gy will be un­der­tak­ing such an ex­ten­sive job on one of its ves­sels," the state­ment said.In ad­di­tion to this ser­vice re­quire­ment, gen­er­al wear and tear has made it nec­es­sary to fa­cil­i­tate re­pairs to the un­der­wa­ter com­po­nents of the ves­sels in­clu­sive of the hull, and the ca­thod­ic pro­tec­tion sys­tem, the com­pa­ny said.

De­spite some chal­lenges, the op­er­at­ing as­sets team, head­ed by its man­ag­er Michelle Sci­pio-Hosang, and su­per­vi­sor of the dry-dock­ing works, Gre­go­ry Ar­jun, has "been work­ing dili­gent­ly to com­plete the re­pair of the NEC Em­press and re­turn the ves­sel to ser­vice in the short­est pos­si­ble time."An­oth­er ves­sel, the NEC Ma­jes­tic has reached its ten-year op­er­at­ing tenure and re­quires ma­jor re­pairs. It is sched­uled to un­der­go dry-dock­ing in Au­gust while the NEC Vi­sion is sched­uled for dry-dock­ing in Jan­u­ary.The com­pa­ny is sur­vey­ing oth­er ves­sels to en­sure they main­tain class and statu­to­ry cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. This sur­vey is done an­nu­al­ly to con­firm the in­tegri­ty of the ves­sels hull and ma­chin­ery.

Trans­ship­ment Port andDry Dock Project

The com­pa­ny al­so has a trans­ship­ment port and dry dock project, for which it said it "has tak­en a com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment ap­proach" and has "made it a du­ty to in­ter­act with all com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers at the project de­vel­op­ment, ex­e­cu­tion, com­ple­tion and op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion stages of each project un­der the com­pa­ny's purview."Na­tion­al En­er­gy said that, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Trade In­dus­try In­vest­ment and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, it host­ed the first com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing for the trans­ship­ment port and dry dock project to be lo­cat­ed in La Brea.

The June 24 meet­ing served to in­tro­duce the La Brea com­mu­ni­ty to the project and re­ceive feed­back. The Trade Min­istry is the project own­er while Na­tion­al En­er­gy is the project man­ag­er, re­spon­si­ble for "the ex­e­cu­tion of the Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC)," as well as all oth­er rel­e­vant reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals."As project man­ag­er Na­tion­al En­er­gy is man­ag­ing the process for ob­tain­ing the CEC on be­half of the min­istry and has ini­ti­at­ed the process of stake­hold­er en­gage­ment on the draft terms of ref­er­ence for the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact as­sess­ment for the project," it said.

The com­pa­ny promised job op­por­tu­ni­ties com­ing out of the project, say­ing that 70 per cent of the labour on the project will come from the com­mu­ni­ty. The project ia ex­pect­ed to boost "an­cil­lary busi­ness­es due to the growth in busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty."Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 peo­ple at­tend­ed the meet­ing, in­clud­ing Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Nor­ris Her­bert, La Brea MP Fitzger­ald Jef­frey, Coun­cil­lor for the area Ger­ald De­bis­sette and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of sev­er­al La Brea com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions.