Marine Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Services in Dubai & UAE
HVAC-R design, installation, conversion and servicing for vessels, offshore assets and onshore marine facilities — delivered inside your port window.
Chillex Technical Services LLC is a leader in HVAC-R design, engineering, installation and maintenance for marine, offshore and onshore vessels in the United Arab Emirates.
With decades of experience and more than 5,000 HVAC-R systems installed, we deliver customised, reliable and space-efficient solutions for ships, offshore rigs and maritime facilities.
Marine work has a different discipline to shore work. Space is scarce, access is awkward, the environment is corrosive, permits are strict and the schedule is set by the sailing date — not by us. We plan for all of it.
Where We Attend
Both coasts, alongside or at anchorage. Tell us the port and the ETA.
West coast — Arabian Gulf
Jebel Ali · Port Rashid · Dubai Maritime City · Dubai Creek · Port Khalid (Sharjah) · Hamriyah · Ajman · Umm Al Quwain · Mina Saqr · Khalifa Port · Mina Zayed · Musaffah
East coast — Gulf of Oman
Port of Fujairah · Fujairah Anchorage · Khor Fakkan
Around 12,000 vessels call at Fujairah each year and the anchorage holds up to 174 vessels at a time. If you're taking bunkers or stores there and need HVAC-R attendance in the same window, tell us the ETA.
Offshore & attendance types
Offshore support vessels, rigs, platforms and onshore marine facilities in UAE waters.
- Alongside — berth attendance
- At anchorage — where arrangements allow
- In yard / drydock — extended scopes and conversions
Systems We Work On
Air conditioning plants
- Accommodation AC — DX and chilled water
- Self-contained and split units
- Fan coil units and air handling units
- ECR and cargo control room cooling
- Ventilation, filtration and pressurisation
- Ducting and air distribution
Provision refrigeration
- Provision plants — chilled and frozen rooms
- Vegetable, meat, fish and dairy rooms
- Provision plant compressors and condensing units
- Evaporators, defrost and drainage
- Controls, thermostats and alarms
- Insulated panels, doors and seals
Cargo & reefer
- Refrigerated cargo hold plant
- Brine and glycol systems
- Cargo temperature control and logging
Compressors & rotating plant
- Open-drive, semi-hermetic and screw compressors
- Overhaul, rebuild and reconditioning
- Valve, bearing, shaft seal and gasket renewal
- Seawater-cooled condenser cleaning and tube work
- Shell-and-tube and plate heat exchangers
- Pumps, motors and starters
R12 & R22 Conversion — Done Properly, Documented Properly
The regulatory position
Under MARPOL Annex VI, Regulation 12, installation of equipment containing ozone-depleting substances — including R22 — is prohibited on ships constructed on or after 1 January 2020. Every vessel must maintain a list of equipment containing ODS and an ODS Record Book, recording each servicing, maintenance, repair or disposal action affecting that equipment.
If your vessel is still operating on R22, you're carrying a compliance exposure, a documentation obligation, and a conversion cost that gets no cheaper by waiting.
We are one of a limited number of companies in the UAE with the knowledge and experienced staff to carry out these conversions across marine, offshore, oil and gas, industrial and commercial assets. Our teams convert R12 and R22 systems to R134a, R407c, R404a and R417a.
A conversion done properly covers
- System assessment — condition, capacity, component compatibility
- Oil compatibility — mineral to POE/alkylbenzene changeover and flushing
- Component changes — expansion devices, seals, gaskets, driers
- Recovery and lawful disposal of the existing charge
- Recharge, leak test and pressure test
- Performance verification against the duty, not just "it runs"
- Documentation for your ODS Record Book, class file and PSC inspection
Why the detail matters. A conversion done as a drop-in gas swap will run — for a while. Then it loses capacity, the oil doesn't return, the compressor starves and you have a failure in a place where failures are expensive. The engineering around the gas change is the job. The gas change is the easy part.
What We Get Called For
Seawater condenser fouling
The defining marine failure. Biofouling, slime, marine growth and salt deposition build on the seawater side, particularly in warm tropical waters — and Gulf waters are as warm as they get. A fouled condenser raises high-side pressure, trips the plant on HP, drops capacity and overworks the compressor. We clean tube and plate sides, address flow restriction, and check filters, strainers and sacrificial protection.
Compressor faults
Valve leaks, worn bearings, shaft seal leakage, motor overload, high discharge temperature, oil carry-over. We overhaul and rebuild rather than automatically replace — often the difference between sailing on schedule and waiting on a spare.
Refrigerant leaks and loss of charge
Leak detection, repair, recovery and recharge. Where a system leaks repeatedly, we'll say so rather than selling you gas twice a year — and on an ODS system, repeated top-ups also mean repeated Record Book entries.
Loss of temperature in provision rooms
Defrost faults, evaporator icing, drainage blockage, door seal failure, control drift, thermostat and sensor faults.
Plant tripping on safeties
HP/LP trips, oil differential, motor protection, phase failure. A plant cutting out on a safety is protecting itself — the fault is what's driving it there.
How to Get Us on Board
Send the vessel details
Vessel name, IMO number, port or anchorage, ETA and ETD, the system affected and what it's doing. WhatsApp, email or phone — whichever is fastest, any hour.
We confirm mobilisation
We tell you straight away whether we can make your window, what we'd bring, and what it will take. If we can't make it, we'll say so immediately rather than leaving you to discover it on the day.
We attend and report
Our team attends alongside, at anchorage or in yard, works to your permit-to-work system, completes the scope, and hands over a written report with readings and actions taken.
Send this and we can quote immediately
- Vessel name and IMO number
- Port or anchorage, ETA and ETD
- System affected — AC plant, provision plant, reefer, cargo, compressor
- Make and model if known, and the refrigerant in use
- Fault description — what it's doing, what alarms or trips, when it started
- Photographs of the plant, nameplate and any fault codes
- Agent details and who is arranging launch, gate passes and permits
- Spares already on board, if any
Planned Maintenance, Not Just Breakdowns
Breakdown attendance is expensive, disruptive and always badly timed. For operators with vessels calling the UAE regularly, we run planned HVAC-R maintenance programmes scheduled around your trading pattern.
- Attendance planned around your rotation — work carried out on port calls you're already making
- Condition monitoring of compressors, condensers and controls
- Seawater condenser cleaning on schedule
- Refrigerant leak management and ODS Record Book support
- Spares planning — what to carry, what we hold ashore
- Consistent reporting format across the fleet, for your PMS and technical files
- Ship and shore under one supplier — vessels, offshore assets, and shore-side cold storage
Send Us the Vessel, the Port and the ETA
We'll confirm whether we can make your window — usually the same day.