Korean companies push hard into U.S. Navy MRO market as gateway to greater cooperation

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Korean shipbuilders are deepening their push into the U.S. Navy’s maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) market, with work on American support ships mounting at major domestic yards.

The move — albeit small in number — plays a strategically crucial role for the Korean shipbuilding industry, as shipbuilders see it as a way to build trust in the world’s largest naval maintenance market and widen Korea-U.S. shipbuilding cooperation, even as access remains narrow and competition intense. 

Korean shipbuilders have already won three U.S. Navy MRO contracts this year, shipbuilding industry sources said Sunday — an impressive feat, considering that Korean firms secured just five MRO contracts in the whole of 2025.

Hanwha Ocean says its first U.S. Navy contract came after it secured a Master Ship Repair Agreement (MSRA) from the Naval Supply Systems Command, while HJ Shipbuilding & Construction said in January that its own MSRA opened the door to bidding on both support-ship and combat-ship maintenance work for five years.

HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' (HHI) effort in entering the MRO race is also becoming more fruitful. On April 6, the USNS Richard E. Byrd docked at the company's Ulsan shipyard. The 41,000-ton dry cargo and ammunition ship, which entered service in 2008 and has operated in the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet area, is scheduled to return to sea in June after maintenance on roughly 100 items involving the hull, structures and propulsion and electrical systems. 

The appeal of the business is clear. Because MRO work continues across a ship’s full service life, it can provide shipbuilders with long-term revenue beyond one-off newbuilding orders. Market research firm Fortune Business Insights projects that the global naval vessel MRO market will grow from $127.1 billion this year to $215.5 billion by 2034. 

HD HHI recently completed an earlier MRO job on the USNS Cesar Chavez and redelivered the vessel earlier this month. Hanwha Ocean has also secured two U.S. Navy MRO contracts this year. While the U.S. Navy initially requested MRO for around 90 items, the company has had to repair and service an additional 100 or so items, significantly increasing the total contract amount.  

Hanwha Ocean, the first local firm to overhaul a U.S. Navy ship, secured two MRO contracts from the U.S. Navy for its Busan and Jinhae, South Gyeongsang plants each this year.  

Samsung Heavy Industries is also preparing to enter the market in earnest through a strategic partnership with Vigor Marine Group, a U.S. shipyard specializing in naval maintenance and modernization. Samsung Heavy said last month that the partnership was aimed at pursuing MRO work for U.S. Navy auxiliary ships and, eventually, broader commercial shipbuilding cooperation in the United States.

HJ Shipbuilding & Construction is carrying out additional work on the USNS Amelia Earhart, a 40,000-ton logistics support ship. The vessel had originally been expected to depart last month after inspection and maintenance, but extra repair items were found during the overhaul, extending the work into June. HJ said that Amelia Earhart had entered its Yeongdo shipyard and that the company had secured MSRA qualification from the Naval Supply Systems Command in January.

For Korean shipbuilders, the strategic value may be even greater than the immediate earnings.

U.S. Navy MRO contracts are seen as a gateway to Korea's initiative to invest in and revitalize the U.S. shipbuilding industry, known as "Make American Shipbuilding Great Again" (MASGA).

More than the size of the contracts themselves, what matters is their potential to lead to much larger follow-on business by helping Korean shipbuilders gain a foothold in the U.S. market and build credibility there. The U.S. maritime industry has traditionally been difficult for foreign companies to penetrate. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, better known as the Jones Act, has long shielded the market by requiring vessels engaged in coastwise trade between U.S. points to be U.S.-built and U.S.-owned.

An opening has emerged for Korean shipbuilders in the MRO industry because U.S. yards have lost competitiveness over time, and local capacity has come under strain as the Navy’s fleet ages and maintenance demand grows. To put out the immediate fire, Washington opened part of the market to close allies with strong shipbuilding capabilities, including Korea. Even so, Korean shipbuilders are, in practice, largely limited to MRO work on U.S. Navy 7th Fleet vessels based in Japan.

“The Korean government should push the U.S. side to revise relevant laws and systems so broader MRO cooperation becomes possible and to share the U.S. Navy’s annual ship maintenance schedule in advance,” said Yun Ji-won, a professor of national security at Sangmyung University. “Greater cooperation with the United States would also help raise Korea’s credibility with European countries and create an opportunity for the domestic shipbuilding industry’s MRO business to grow.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY KO SUK-HYUN [[email protected]]