DP World, Cochin Shipyard form 50/50 shipyard JV

DP World joins Cochin Shipyard in ship-repair JV

DP World subsidiary Drydocks World approved a 50% stake in a new JV with Cochin Shipyard — set to take over the International Ship Repair Facility (ISRF) in Kochi, according to a company disclosure (pdf). The transaction still requires regulatory and shareholder approvals, with completion targeted before the end of FY 2027.

What’s inside the JV: The ISRF will be transferred to the JV for at least INR 18 bn (c. USD 189 mn), with Cochin Shipyard receiving half in banknotes and the rest in JV shares. Drydocks World will get three of the five board seats, versus two for Cochin Shipyard, and can also nominate the JV’s senior management, including the CEO, CFO, and COO where applicable.

The size is already sizeable: The roughly 30-hectare ISRF was built for INR 9.7 bn and began commercial operations in August 2024, with a 6k-ton ship lift, six workstations, around 1.4 km of berthing space, and capacity to handle up to six vessels simultaneously. The JV will add another 10 workstations and handle dry-docking, maintenance, repair, and overhaul of commercial and naval vessels.

BACKGROUND- This follows a head-of-terms agreement between Drydocks World and Cochin Shipyard signed last October to build what they called India's first vessel repair cluster at the same Kochi site, itself a follow-on to an earlier MoU to develop repair clusters in both Kochi and Vadinar (we covered it at the time).

It also sits inside a broader push of UAE capital into India's shipbuilding and ports sector: Around the same time, Abu Dhabi Ports Group, the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, and Maharashtra's ports department separately agreed to steer up to USD 2 bn into shipbuilding, ship-breaking, and port infrastructure in the state, as the two countries work to widen their bilateral trade pact to cover new sectors, including logistics.

Abu Dhabi gets a bigger repair dock

Safeen is scaling up at Zayed Port: Safeen Drydocks, the ship-repair arm of Noatum Maritime, has installed a 230-meter floating dock at Zayed Port with a lifting capacity of up to 21k tons, allowing it to handle ocean-going vessels and rig-repair projects, according to a press release. The dock sits alongside 1 km of quayside, taking Safeen’s shipyard footprint across Zayed and Khalifa ports to more than 170k sqm. The added capacity will serve its deep-sea fleet alongside third-party customers, helping reduce downtime and give operators more flexibility around maintenance windows.

A sizeable expansion from Safeen’s original Abu Dhabi setup: Its Khalifa Port base was launched around a 45k sqm shipyard, a 350-meter repair quay, and a floating dock capable of handling tankers, bulkers, containerships, offshore vessels, and jack-ups.

Another day, another data center in KSA

KSA is adding another data center project: Saudi-listed Edarat Communication and Information Technology secured an SAR 197.8 mn award from Al Moammar Information System (MIS) to provide design, construction supervision, testing, and commissioning services for an AI data center with 200 MW of planned capacity, according to a Tadawul disclosure. The company received a separate SAR 72.4 mn AI data center award from MIS in March, covering the same engineering and commissioning services, according to a separate disclosure.

The latest award adds another 200 MW to Saudi’s fast-growing data center pipeline. MIS said it would invest USD 1.2 bn to expand its data centers to 192 MW, while NHC Innovation committed USD 880 mn for 65 MW at Khuzam Digital Valley. Humain and DataVolt also started construction on the first 100 MW of DataVolt’s planned 1.5 GW Oxagon campus.