Hanwha Ocean is strengthening its maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) business capabilities in preparation for submarine exports and the Republic of Korea Navy's submarine performance improvement project.
On January 8, Hanwha Ocean held a two-day meeting with German defense contractor Gabler to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation between the two companies, and signed a technical agreement to enhance mutually beneficial cooperation in the maintenance, repair and overhaul business in the field of submarine double steel mast.
On January 8, Hanwha Ocean's Lee Yong-wook, head of the Special Vessel Business Division, and Gabler officials reached a consensus on how to mutually develop cooperation between the two companies. As a result, Hanwha agreed to expand the scope of cooperation with Gabler, a German company with key technologies for submarine double-steel mast.
Accordingly, on January 9, Hanwha Ocean signed a Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) with Gabler to strengthen win-win cooperation in the MRO business in the field of submarine double-steel mast.
The mast is a piece of equipment installed on the superstructure of a submarine and includes periscopes, radars, and communications mast.
Gabler has been preparing to further strengthen its collaboration with Hanwha Ocean by establishing its Korean subsidiary, Gabler Korea, on January 3.
This technical agreement will expand the scope of the license related to double-steel mast technology beyond the existing cooperation, and will expand the cooperation synergies between the two companies, including seamless supply of parts through Gabler Korea and technical cooperation on future MRO projects for double-steel masts on submarines of the Republic of Korea Navy.
Hanwha Ocean is striving to participate in the export and post-export MRO business of warships in line with the growing global defense demand. That's why we recently created an MRO organization. The post-export MRO business is essential for warships, and the scale of the business is so large that it has gained significant business importance. In fact, major defense contractors such as Germany and the United Kingdom have been generating continuous revenue through the MRO business for more than 30 years after exporting submarines.
"The Jangbogo-III submarine, which is currently attracting great interest in the global market, has a stable domestic equipment supply chain with a high localization rate, enabling sales to be tailored to each country's business at any time," said Lee Yong-wook, head of Hanwha Ocean's Special Vessel Division. "We will strengthen our MRO capabilities based on the Gabler technology agreement and lead K-defense exports with Hanwha Ocean's ultra-differentiated defense competitiveness."
