Samsung Heavy Industries signed a strategic partnership with Oregon-based Vigor Marine Group to compete for U.S. Navy ship maintenance contracts, marking another Korean shipbuilder’s entry into America’s lucrative military repair market.
The agreement, announced Monday following high-level meetings between Korean and American officials in Washington, positions the world’s second-largest shipbuilder to bid on maintenance projects for Navy support vessels across forward-deployed locations in the Indo-Pacific region.
Samsung Heavy joins compatriots Hanwha Ocean and HD Hyundai, which have already secured their first U.S. Navy maintenance contracts, as Korean firms capitalize on America’s strained shipbuilding capacity. From 2015 to 2019, three-quarters of all aircraft carrier and submarine maintenance periods were completed late, resulting in over 7,000 days of cumulative delay.
The partnership forms part of Seoul’s “Make American Shipbuilding Great Again” initiative, promising $150 billion in U.S. investments. U.S. shipyards, which had the world’s highest production capacity during World War II, saw their market share fall to 0.04% by 2024, while Korean and Chinese yards now dominate global construction.
Whether Korean expertise can successfully address America’s industrial decay remains questionable. Training local workers could take four to five years, and it is hard to find people willing to do difficult shipyard work, industry sources told Reuters. Samsung Heavy’s ambitions extend beyond maintenance to eventual commercial shipbuilding partnerships and training centers, though execution timelines remain undefined.
Vigor Marine, acquired by Carlyle Group in 2019, operates facilities across six states and serves as the U.S. prime contractor in the arrangement.