Landmark Indo-UAE Public-Private Partnership Scales Willingdon Island Hub to 16 Workstations, Slashing Foreign Drydock Outflows Under Maritime Amrit Kaal 2047
KOCHI / NEW DELHI — In an unprecedented institutional intervention to dismantle India’s structural reliance on overseas drydocks and establish a premier marine engineering nexus along the East-West shipping superhighway, Dubai-based maritime engineering leader Drydocks World (a DP World company) and state-run shipbuilding giant Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) have executed a definitive 50:50 Joint Venture Agreement to jointly own, operate, and aggressively expand the International Ship Repair Facility (ISRF) at Willingdon Island in Kochi.
The agreement was executed in the presence of Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Shri Sarbananda Sonowal and UAE Assistant Foreign Minister for Advanced Science and Technology Omran Sharaf Alhashimi on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi. The formal signing was concluded between Dr. Rado Antolovic, Chief Executive Officer of Drydocks World, and Jose V. J., Chairman and Managing Director of Cochin Shipyard Limited.
The landmark alliance marks the operationalization of the first-ever comprehensive Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework in India’s commercial ship repair sector. Valued as a going concern at not less than ₹1,800 crore, the ISRF asset will be transferred to the newly formed joint operating vehicle on a slump-sale basis, with CSL receiving 50% of the consideration in cash and the remainder in equity shares of the venture. Both partners will commit an initial ₹900 crore each in equity capital to finance high-precision tooling, yard automation, and capacity additions.
Infrastructure Blueprint: Scaling from 6 to 16 Workstations
Developed over a prime 30-hectare industrial waterfront parcel on Willingdon Island at an initial capital outlay of ₹970 crore, the ISRF achieved commercial commissioning in late 2024. The yard features a state-of-the-art 6,000-tonne ship-lift system, dual transfer tracks, and six fully outfitted repair workstations capable of drydocking vessels up to 130 metres in length and 6,000 tonnes displacement.
Under the newly forged joint venture, the partners will execute a capital expenditure roadmap to add 10 new automated workstations, scaling total yard handling capacity to 16 simultaneous ship-repair berths. The expanded layout is designed to dramatically compress vessel turnaround times (TAT) for a wide range of commercial and defense tonnage:
Commercial & Coastal Cargo Fleets: Dedicated drydocking and underwater hull maintenance for short-sea container feeders, chemical product tankers, coastal bulk carriers, and high-speed Ro-Ro ferries operating across the Indian Subcontinent and Middle East trade loops.
Specialized Offshore & Dredging Assets: Advanced overhauls of dynamic-positioning offshore supply vessels (OSVs/AHTSs), subsea pipe-laying barges, and trailing suction hopper dredgers (TSHDs) active across Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal energy blocks.
Green Marine Retrofits: Outfitting berths dedicated to low-carbon vessel retrofits, including dual-fuel LNG/methanol fuel systems, automated rotor sails, exhaust gas cleaning systems (scrubbers), and shore-to-ship high-voltage cold ironing interfaces.
Squeezing Foreign Drydock Outflows and Securing Maritime Sovereignty
India’s domestic ship repair and maintenance market is expanding at 8% to 10% annually, driven by heavy coastal shipping mandates, naval indigenization, and expanding port feeder traffic. However, limited domestic drydock infrastructure, lengthy waiting schedules, and technical constraints have historically forced domestic shipowners and international liners to divert repair orders to established yards in Colombo, Dubai, Singapore, and China—draining over $1.5 billion (₹12,500 crore) annually in foreign exchange.
In FY26, the ISRF handled repair and maintenance works on approximately 35 commercial and defense vessels, generating ₹207.33 crore in operational revenues (accounting for 4.81% of Cochin Shipyard’s total revenue from operations). The expansion under Drydocks World’s global technical governance is projected to lift throughput to over 80 deep-sea vessels annually, converting Kochi into an internationally recognized one-stop destination for time-critical drydockings.
Located less than 11 nautical miles from the primary trans-Indian Ocean container route—which carries over 60,000 vessels every year—the ISRF provides ocean carriers with zero-deviation drydock access, eliminating multi-day transit detours to Southeast Asia or the upper Arabian Gulf.
Strategic Alignment with Maritime Amrit Kaal 2047
The joint venture serves as an operational template for the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways' broader strategy under Maritime India Vision 2030 and Maritime Amrit Kaal 2047, which aims to elevate India from outside the global top 20 into the top 10 shipbuilding and ship repair nations by 2030, and the top five by 2047.
Addressing the gathering at the signing ceremony, Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal noted:
"The partnership between Cochin Shipyard and Drydocks World marks a decisive turning point in India’s maritime industrial journey. By blending Cochin Shipyard’s skilled workforce and local engineering capabilities with the world-class operational processes, international client networks, and high-end conversion expertise of Drydocks World, this joint venture creates a global center of excellence at Kochi. It will generate thousands of high-skilled engineering jobs, stimulate hundreds of local marine MSME vendors across Kerala, and establish a repeatable public-private partnership model that we plan to replicate across multiple coastal maritime clusters nationwide."
Senior shipping ministry officials confirmed that with five greenfield mega-shipbuilding and repair clusters already granted in-principle government clearances across the western and eastern seaboards, the CSL-Drydocks World operational blueprint will be extended to prospective yard clusters in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh, drawing international technical leaders such as HD Hyundai, Fincantieri, and IHC into long-term domestic ventures.
Supply Chain Multipliers for Kerala’s Ancillary Marine Grid
The joint venture’s aggressive operational scaling is expected to create immediate ripple effects throughout the localized industrial supply ecosystem in Kerala:
Marine Ancillary Localization: Tier-2 and Tier-3 engineering workshops, precision CNC machine shops, valve overhauling hubs, electrical motor winding units, and marine instrumentation suppliers situated within Cochin’s industrial estates will secure long-term sub-contracts for vessel refits.
Specialized Materials Procurement: Sustained demand for marine-grade certified steel plates, copper-nickel piping manifolds, anti-fouling epoxy paints, and cryogenic valves will support domestic manufacturing lines, cutting import lead times for replacement ship spares.
Workforce Upskilling: The integration of Drydocks World's global technical protocols will introduce specialized apprenticeships in robotic hydro-blasting, automated welding metallurgy, subsea alignment engineering, and clean-fuel bunkering safety systems for technical graduates across South India.
Site preparation for the foundation piling and crane rail installation for the additional 10 workstations is slated to begin early next quarter, with commercial operations across the initial expanded bays scheduled to come online in phases starting late 2027.