Unique System FZE (Unique), a Unique Maritime Group company, registered three per cent growth in 2012 over 2011 with a turnover of $57.31 million despite the global crunch.

Founded in 1993, Unique is a specialist provider of offshore and onshore services including the sale and rental of equipment for the marine, diving, hydrographic, oceanographic, oil and gas and NDT market sectors.

As part of its organic and inorganic growth strategy, Unique has taken a huge leap forward in strengthening its oil and gas division by investing in its specialist engineering service company Unique Wellube FZC through acquiring a 100 per cent shareholding in the business and integrating the business as a wholly owned subsidiary into the group, according to Ian Huggins, general manager, Unique System.

“Unique Wellube will continue to operate from the group’s headquarters in Sharjah and operational support bases while expanding in Qatar and West Africa. To support its growth, Unique has increased its headcount by 26 per cent over the previous 12 months,” he said.

Headquartered in the Hamriyah Free zone, UAE, Unique has significantly expanded its building infrastructure to enable it to meet current and future operating requirements. The new facilities were completed in 2012 and the new development represents a total investment of almost Dh4.5 million ($1.2 million).

The facility is situated within a land area of 14,630 sq m.

“Behind our main office building, we have another 380 sq m of air conditioned workshops, 2,600 sq m of enclosed warehouse space, 750 sq m of shaded work area and 6,900 sq m of open yard space. The main office building also houses a staff dining area which is accessible by the elevator,” said Huggins.

With this new set up, Unique maintains a large stock of diving equipment and consumables. The diving department has a dedicated production facility with a skilled workforce constantly engaged in the manufacturing of diving systems and system components. All these factors enable the company to react to various order requests from clients in a very efficient and effective manner leading to fast responses.

Unique provides specialist onshore and offshore services and is looking to diversify into new markets

“We also have a training centre in the new facility and have entered into operator agreements to deliver world-class diving and ROV-related training in the region.

“We carried into 2013 a significant amount of potential projects; we are also seeing an increase in enquiries for the support and services that we offer to the marine and oil and gas industry. We are also able to take on other projects in related fields such as aviation due to the transferability of the technical capability of the engineers,” Huggins said.

Unique has set itself a target of 5 per cent growth for 2013 and is looking at expansion plans into Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

“The year 2013 is a very special year for us as we completed 20 years of operations in January. We look forward to further consolidation of the successes and recent investments in structure and processes all of which were designed to enable us to provide greater value to our end clients,” Huggins said.

The group has developed manufacturing capability for the delivery of customised engineering projects worldwide with offices reaching globally.  It also uses an integrated central ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics AX, for efficient systematic management of the company.

Unique operates with quality assurance standards ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 and has built up an impressive reputation for quality, innovation, service and speed of response in its two decades of existence and is always striving to improve its product and service offerings. It achieves this by adhering to a series of established values, operating ethically and responsibly at all times. The aim of the group is to maintain integrity by conducting its business in a way that makes people want to work with, and for, UMG.