Aker Yards and Union Naval (Marseille and Barcelona) have concluded an 
agreement giving Aker Yards Lifecycle Services opportunity for 
conversions in the Mediterranean.

The parties have agreed that conversions of the Mediterranean region 
are quoted and managed by Aker Yards Lifecycle Services (AY-LCS), with 
the work taking place at the repair yards of Union Naval Marseille and 
Barcelona (UNM-UNB), with resources of the repair yard and other AY-LCS 
alliance members.

This alliance with UNM-UNB is part of Aker Yards  strategy to to 
provide services in all major Cruise & Ferries operation areas. The demand of 
such services is growing and Aker Yards has conversion, refurbishment 
(of passenger areas), retrofit (of ship systems) as well as maintenance 
& spare part services in Europe, North-America & Caribbean and Asia.

In addition to Union Naval Marseille and Union Naval Barcelona, AY-LCS 
has an alliance agreement with Turku Repair Yard (North-Baltic 
conversions), Foreship (engineering), OP-Group and Riverco (public spaces), 
Alandia Engineering (electrical systems), SRC (Europe / ship systems), 
SeaQuest (Asia / ship systems).

With the integration of Marseille's facilities, Union Naval has become 
the shipyard with the biggest capacity in all Mediterranean, owning 
four docks: two in Barcelona (120 x 19, 215 x 35) and two in Marseille, 
(250 x 37, 320 x 53) with unbeatable facilities provided to carry out 
repair works and to convert any kind of vessels.
Union Naval Marseille has the possibility to operate the biggest repair 
dock in Europe and the second of the world (465 x 85) to accommodate 
almost 100 % of the actual worldwide fleet.
UNM has begun its operations on19 September 2006. The first vessel in 
its facilities has been the Blue Dream, owned by Pullmantur Cruises 
newly acquired by Royal Caribbean.