Drydocks World joins Dubai consortium to redevelop Bijela shipyard in Montenegro

Consortium to transform facility into a superyacht repair and refit facility

Drydocks World, a DP World company is joining Group Adriatic Marinas consortium to redevelop the Bijela shipyard in Montenegro.. Bloomberg.

Dubai’s Drydocks World is joining the Adriatic Marinas consortium to redevelop the Bijela shipyard in Montenegro.

Drydocks World is a DP World company, while the Group Adriatic Marinas is fully owned by the Investment Corporation of Dubai. Drydocks World is replacing Dutch ship-building group Damen in the consortium for the redevelopment of the shipyard, according to a statement issued by Drydocks World on Friday.

"This exciting project will not only regenerate the shipyard at Bijela but the whole marine engineering industry, and bring back to life the long and proud maritime history of Montenegro,” Mohammed Al Shaibani, Adriatic Marinas chairman, said in a statement on Friday. “Together we will reposition Bijela to become one of the Mediterranean's leading superyacht repair and refit facilities."

The redevelopment works will see the shipyard evolve into a superyacht repair and refit facility with plans to start some service work during this re-development period. The transformation of the yard by the consortium is expected to be completed over a 36-month period.

Bijela is the historic homeland of marine engineering in Montenegro.

“With this yard redevelopment, the region will once again bring the country's renowned sector skills to the Mediterranean marine market,” the statement said.

The consortium also plans to establish a skills academy at Bijela to develop future generations of marine engineers in partnership with the superyacht operations training academy at Porto Montenegro.

“By forging a consortium of this nature between Adriatic Marinas and Drydocks World, we are bringing together the considerable combined resources and expertise to develop a world-class facility in Montenegro which will support the economy of the country,” Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, group chairman and chief executive of DP World, said.

Dubai-based global port operator DP World is set to deliver a "relatively stable" financial performance in 2020 after reporting a 1.9 per cent increase in third-quarter gross container volumes led by Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The company handled 18.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) across its global portfolio of container terminals in the three months to September 30, up from 17.7m TEUs in the same quarter a year ago, DP World said in a statement on October 26.