ARES Shipyard

ARES SHIPYARD

Turkey’s largest ship exporter powered by Inside Marine

want an article created? insidemarine.com

apply here

ARES SHIPYARD

2

ARES Shipyard

I

PROFILE

ARES Shipyard is one of Turkey’s fastest growing companies, having increased its sales revenue by an astonishing 4,473% in just five years. As the country’s largest ship exporter, it is no surprise that ARES has been awarded various accolades in the 16 years since the company’s founding. Based in the Antalya Free Zone, ARES has built more than 100 vessels for sectors including military, commercial and pleasure craft. Jordan Yallop reports.

R

ecognised by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey as one of the country’s fastest growing companies, ARES Shipyard also holds the title of Turkey’s largest exporter of marine vessels, having increased its sales revenue by a staggering 4,473% in just five years.

Ozgun Utku Alanc, CEO of ARES Shipyard said: “These numbers, not surprisingly, brought us the largest ship exporter title of Turkey with an annual export sales figure of almost $200 million.”

ARES Shipyard and its five production facilities are located within the boundary of the Antalya Free Zone.

Founded in 2006 by the Kalafatoğlu family, ARES initially cut its teeth by successfully constructing and delivering small pleasure craft, small fishing vessels and leisure boats for the public market. Mr Alanc cited one of the company’s first critical milestones as “gaining experience in the fields of aluminium, steel and composite production”.

Fair winds ARES really set sail for greatness in 2007 when the company made the strategic decision to specialise in the production of military and para-military craft.

Mr Alanc explained the context behind this decision: “The shipyard has aimed to become an international defence industry company by investing in human resources, organisation management, integrated logistics support, quality management and advanced production technologies.

“These investments, in a short period of time, resulted in a substantial number of sales of boats to various naval forces, coast guard commands, maritime police, port security and customs enforcement directorates, most of which were export programs.”

Gaining excellent traction in export markets, ARES has built and delivered vessels for clients in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Nigeria, Georgia, Tanzania, Cyprus and Turkmenistan. To date, ARES has built over 100 vessels with a market sector split of 85% military and paramilitary, with the remaining 15% covering the company’s commercial and pleasure craft activities.

“Within these percentages, the major military and paramilitary segment consists of mainly patrol vessels with the commercial

ARES Shipyard

3

ARES SHIPYARD

I

PROFILE

and pleasure craft segment consist of passenger craft, work boats and yachts in approximately same proportions,” clarified Mr Alanc.

ARES had been awarded ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 quality management systems, as well as the Ministry of Defense Production License accompanied with NATO Security Clearance Certificate along with supporting Naval Forces and Coast Guard Organizations in military programs.

Projected growth As mentioned, ARES has five production facilities within the Antalya Free Zone including, a harbour launch, metal, composite and carpenter workshops, paint ovens, training classrooms and modern office areas.

Mr Alanc spoke about the specifications of the company’s newest, fifth production facility: “It has been designed for steel and aluminium ship building. With this facility, ARES increased its total enclosed production area to 40,000 sqm and shipbuilding capacity has been increased to 90m vessels with 2,500 tonnes displacement.”

ARES is not just limited to its shipbuilding facilities; the company also has a separate marine furniture factory under the same corporate and commercial structure. This segment not only manufactures furniture for its own vessels but also produces luxury furniture for megayacht programs of other shipyards and companies.

ARES currently has around 400 employees, however, in line with the company’s growth and upcoming programs, this is projected to increase to around 450 employees by the end of the year.

Small is the new big When discussing the current and future trend for the shipbuilding industry Mr Alanc mentioned that smaller is the new big, elaborating: “If you can design and build vessels smaller in size, they are more seaworthy, more capable in performance and manoeuvrability.

“This also means they can be operated with less crew. As a result, not only do the lifecycle costs of the end users decrease but also the efficiency of the institutions increases, while keeping the operations going and providing non-stop security.”

Aside from the trend of decreasing vessel size, the trend that Mr Alanc projects to grow in the coming years is that of unmanned vessels. He did clarify that the aim is not the act of replacing manned vehicles with unmanned ones and eliminating the human factor – far from it.

“It is about complementing each other with their superiorities and utilising these advantages against nature for instance,

4

ARES Shipyard

or ergonomic restrictions and most importantly decreasing the probability of losing human lives. That’s exactly why we have been investing in R&D especially in unmanned surface and underwater vehicles for the last five years,” said Mr Alanc.

A catalogue of achievements ARES is an incredibly technology-centric company that invests heavily in R&D and is always striving to be at the leading edge of advancement. So it should come as no surprise to learn that the shipyard is at the forefront of the newest innovations around the unmanned vessel revolution.

ARES has partnered with Meteksan Defence, a Turkish defence technology company which specialises in radar systems, perimeter surveillance systems, laser and electro-optic systems and communication systems.

This partnership has borne Turkey’s first armed Unmanned Surface Vehicle (AUSV). A prototype was launched in December 2020, becoming the first of the ARES ULAQ unmanned line. The capabilities of this new breed of vessel are extensive and include full day/night vision, encrypted communications infrastructure, and can be operated from mobile vehicles or sea platforms, such as aircraft carriers or frigates.

Mr Alanc stated: “We are proudly aiming to develop the world’s best unmanned surface vehicles and establish ourselves as a pioneer in this field, bringing ARES and Meteksan into a leading position in the world, creating trends in the field of USVs.” While this is the culmination of ARES and Meteksan’s future vision, ARES still has one foot planted firmly in the present as it also builds various vessels. At the beginning of 2017, the shipyard was awarded “The World’s Best Patrol Boat Builder” by an international maritime institution and the company’s ARES 110 HURCULES Fast Patrol Boat was elected as the best in class simultaneously.

ARES has an ongoing program for the Turkish Coastguard, where 122 ARES 35 FPB Fast Patrol Boats have been delivered already, making the program the largest serial production in the company’s history.

“The project is planned to last for five years and on the other hand, the contract allows for additional vessels. We are delivering six boats every two months based on our production program. Thus, one boat is being made ready to launch in only one week… this is something only ARES can achieve!” declared Mr Alanc.

FRANCIS SEARCHLIGHTS LTD We are a proud partner and supplier of ARES Shipyard and we wish them continued success and growth.

Our team has been designing and manufacturing in the UK, since 1901, the most innovative and high-performing lighting products in the market. We offer an extensive range of searchlights in all sizes, configurations and light sources, suitable for any vessel, application, or customer.

Our extensive range of high-power LED searchlights is widely regarded as the most powerful available worldwide. editorial mention

When a plan comes together ARES is certainly a company with a vision and as such had meticulously planned out its future. This took the form of a 10-year investment plan of five phases. As of 2022, ARES is in the eighth year of its plan and has already completed the first four phases.

The first of these phases was to create the largest man/machine hybrid system composite production facility; the second phase was the block production facility for larger steel and aluminium vessels. The third phase was the state-of-the-art marine furniture production facility, while the fourth was to create the largest building and outfitting facility in Antalya Free Zone with a capacity of 90m vessels with 2,500 tonnes displacement.

“Our last phase includes a 170m, unlimited displacement, enclosed dry dock in Antalya Free Zone which is going to be the largest and most capable docking, building and refit facility of the Eastern Mediterranean. This investment is in progress and is scheduled to be commissioned by the end of 2024,” concluded Mr Alanc. n

ARES Shipyard

5