Saudi yard plans on hold

Plans to form a big shipyard on Saudi soil look set to be put on the backburner.

The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri), Saudi Aramco and Singapore’s Sembcorp Marine signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to form a yard back in August 2013. This MoU expired yesterday. Bahri said in a release: “The parties intend to continue their discussion and sign a new MoU or extend the expired MoU.”

Plenty of shipyard executives in the Middle East have repeatedly told Splash that there is already too much yard capacity in the region, leading to cutthroat rates.