Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) on Friday officially entered into a 50:50 joint venture (JV) with Drydocks World (DDW)—a company under the Dubai-based DP World—to operate and expand the International Ship Repair Facility (ISRF) in Kochi.
The agreement for the ₹1,800 crore JV was signed at the sidelines of the BRICS Summit 2026 by Captain Rado Antolovic, the Chief Executive Officer of DDW, and Jose V.J., the Chairman and Managing Director of CSL.
The signing event also saw the presence of Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW), Sarbananda Sonowal, and Omran Sharaf Alhashimi, the UAE's Assistant Foreign Minister for Advanced Science and Technology.
The new JV will operate, consolidate, and expand the ISRF, boosting turnaround times and creating additional capacity to service a wider range of vessels and meet the growing requirements of Indian, regional, and international customers, CSL said in a statement.
This is expected to boost its prowess as an important maritime hub engaged with not just shipbuilding, but also ship repair, in a bid to bridge the gap with foreign facilities, in line with the Maritime India Vision 2030 and the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047.
The transaction will see Cochin Shipyard hand over the ISRF to the JV on a slump-sale basis for a consideration of around the facility's estimated net worth of ₹1,800 crore—half of which the shipbuilder will receive in cash, while the other half will be shares of the JV, as per a CSL filing.
However, Drydocks World will have greater operational control, with the power to nominate three of the JV's five directors—along with key leadership roles such as the CEO, CFO, and COO—while Cochin Shipyard will nominate the other two directors.
The road to the JV
Built at a cost of ₹970 crore, the ISRF began operations in August 2024, undertaking dry-docking, maintenance, repair, and overhaul of commercial and naval vessels less than 130m in length and 6,000 metric tonnes in weight.
The ISRF has six workstations and around 1,400m of berthing space, spread across 30 acres in Kochi's Willingdon Island, allowing it to repair up to six vessels at a time, and up to 82 in a year.
The report added that the facility had generated revenue of ₹207.33 crore last fiscal, accounting for about 4.81 per cent of CSL's total operational revenue, and for about 30.55 per cent of the shipbuilder's net worth then.
A year after its inception, on April 8, 2025, the two firms had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to deepen their partnership to develop ship repair and offshore fabrication hubs across India, after which they signed an Agreement of Heads of Terms at the India Maritime Week 2025 in October that year.
The event also saw CSL and DDW enter into a tripartite MoU with the Centre of Excellence in Maritime and Shipbuilding (CEMS), an entity promoted by the Indian Register of Shipping (IRS), to jointly develop an industry-ready maritime workforce of international standards to support the ship repair efforts.
Training was aimed at combining CEMS' advanced simulation programs, CSL's facilities, and mentoring by seasoned experts from both India and Dubai, bringing up the workforce in line with international techniques and standards.
These agreements paved the way for the September 2026 JV agreement, which now aims to increase the number of workstations at the ISRF by 10, among other objectives.
The JV will now require approvals from the Cochin Port Authority (CoPA), the MoPSW, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, and Cochin Shipyard's shareholders, after which it is expected to go into effect before the end of FY 2026-27.
