HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) is stepping up its efforts in the defense maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sector through overseas investments, according to Businesskorea. Subic Yard in the Philippines is expected to be the base. The group’s shipbuilding holding company HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE) recently began leasing land and facilities in the area.
HD HHI recently held a webinar for analysts on its specialty ship (naval vessel) segment, according to sources in the shipbuilding industry on May 29.
At the event, HD HHI conveyed its policy to continue group-wide investment in local facilities in the Philippines to expand its MRO business for the U.S. Navy (U.S. 7th Fleet) which is carrying out missions overseas.
Analyzing that the decline of the shipbuilding industry in the U.S. has limited America’s ship MRO capacity, HD HHI said that fleets operating overseas are also increasingly demanding MRO services to improve their utilization rates.
In addition, there is growing demand for performance improvement as well as simple maintenance work, and only a few shipbuilders have capacities and facilities to do so, it added.
Recently, HD KSOE, the shipbuilding holding company of HD Hyundai Group, announced that it has decided to lease some land and facilities at Subic Yard in the Philippines to build offshore wind power substructures and expand its ship MRO business.
Subic Yard was established by Hanjin Heavy Industries in 2006. Since then, ships had been built at Subic Yard but it was shut down due to a deteriorating global shipbuilding industry in 2019. HD HHI set up a logistics support center in Subic Yard in 2022 and has been conducting the MRO business for ships delivered to the Philippine Navy.