Where Ship Repair Is Busiest Right Now: China vs the Mediterranean vs the Gulf
Where is ship repair actually happening right now? We answer it two ways: by the share of AIS-verified yard visits our 68-yard Ship Repair Index panel recorded over the last 13 weeks, and by each region's SRI sub-index against its own 2025 baseline. The two rankings do not agree, and the gap is the story.
By volume: Turkey's Marmara yards handle the most ships
Counting distinct vessels that called at a panel yard between week 23 and week 36 of 2026, the Mediterranean and Black Sea region is the busiest repair market on the planet, and it is Turkey that carries it. Three yards on the Sea of Marmara alone took more ships than the whole of the Americas.
| Region | Vessels at panel yards (13 weeks) | Busiest yards |
|---|---|---|
| Mediterranean & Black Sea | 1,839 | Tersan (489), Selah (363), Dearsan (300), all Turkey |
| North-West Europe | 1,558 | Nauta Gdynia (303), UK Docks Teesside (278), Tallinn Shipyard (142) |
| South-East & South Asia | 1,458 | Seatrium Pioneer Yard (298), PPL Shipyard (234), PaxOcean Batam (227) |
| China | 1,068 | COSCO Guangdong (299), Yiu Lian Shekou (221), CMHI Shenzhen (176) |
| Korea & Japan | 1,056 | Nihon Shipyard (505), HD Hyundai Ulsan (167), Orient Busan (106) |
| Middle East | 483 | Albwardy Damen Fujairah (168), Drydocks World Dubai (85), Premier Marine (66) |
| Americas | 436 | Austal Mobile (141), Bollinger Texas City (103), Detyens Charleston (61) |
| Africa | 168 | EBH Durban (88), Casablanca New Shipyard (51), Nigerdock (29) |
| Oceania | 50 | PNG Dockyard (28), AMC Henderson (17) |
Two caveats belong next to this table. The panel is deliberately small, eight to ten benchmark yards per region and only three in Africa and Oceania, so it measures the pulse of each market rather than its total size. And a "vessel" here is one hull seen inside a yard polygon, whether it stayed for a two-day voyage repair or a five-week special survey. Turkey's lead is partly a lead in short, fast jobs.
By momentum: China is the only region above its 2025 pace
The Ship Repair Index normalises each region to its own 2025 average (2025 = 100), which strips out yard size and asks a different question: is this region busier or quieter than it was a year ago? Comparing the finalized weeks of the second quarter with the same weeks of 2025:
| Region | Q2 2025 | Q2 2026 | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 97 | 158 | Sixty percent above last year, the outlier of the whole index |
| Korea & Japan | 107 | 111 | Slightly up, the only other region to hold its 2025 level |
| North-West Europe | 105 | 98 | Close to baseline |
| Americas | 104 | 92 | Mild softening |
| Oceania | 107 | 91 | Mild softening on a very small panel |
| Mediterranean & Black Sea | 112 | 84 | Busiest by volume, but a quarter below its own 2025 pace |
| South-East & South Asia | 106 | 76 | Singapore and Batam quieter than a strong 2025 |
| Africa | 121 | 69 | Sharp fall from an unusually busy 2025 |
| Middle East | 105 | 41 | Weakest region: Gulf yards at well under half their 2025 activity |
| World | 107 | 91 | Global repair activity about 15 percent below the same quarter last year |
So the region taking the most ships is not the region gaining the most work. Turkey and Singapore are busy in absolute terms and quieter than last year; Chinese repair yards are absorbing demand at a rate no other region matches. Part of that is price, part is the Chinese yards' proximity to the fleets calling at Chinese ports, and part is the redirection of tonnage that in 2025 would have docked in the Gulf.
The Middle East question
The Middle East sub-index is the number that deserves the most attention. Its 2025 average was ordinary, its second quarter of 2026 sits at 41 and the third quarter so far at 36. Fujairah, Dubai and Bahrain together saw fewer than five hundred panel-yard calls in thirteen weeks, a third of what the Marmara yards handled. Rerouting away from the Red Sea keeps a share of the world fleet out of the Gulf altogether, and the ships that do transit are docking in the Mediterranean on the way in or in Asia on the way out. For owners, that shows up as available slots and negotiable prices in the Gulf; for the yards, it is the softest market on the map.
Third quarter so far: seasonal, and still provisional
The third-quarter readings to date are lower everywhere: the world index averaged 63 across weeks 27 to 36 against 110 in the same weeks of 2025. Two things are in that number. Northern-summer softness is normal, and the most recent five weeks are provisional: they are published from the AIS visits detected so far and revise upward as later position reports confirm stays that were still in progress at the cut-off. The finalized weeks 27 to 31 sit at 64 to 79, and that band, rather than the provisional tail, is the honest read of late summer. We will update this piece when September finalizes.
What to do with this
- Owners and superintendents: if a docking is flexible on location, Gulf yards are quoting into a soft book; Marmara and Singapore yards are busy and worth booking early for the autumn survey season.
- Yards: the regional index is a fair benchmark for your own occupancy. A yard below its region's line is losing share, not just facing a slow market.
- Analysts: the full weekly series and every regional sub-index are on the Ship Repair Index page; the yards in each region's panel are listed with their drydock dimensions in the shipyard directory, and each country hub, for example Turkey, China and the UAE, shows the yards behind these numbers.
Method
- Source: AIS-verified stays inside the dock and berth polygons of 68 curated repair yards, per ISO week, matched to the TrustedDocks vessel database.
- Volume table: distinct vessels per yard, weeks 23 to 36 of 2026, summed per region.
- Index table: regional SRI sub-index, equal-weighted average of the finalized weekly readings in ISO weeks 14 to 26; 2025 average = 100. Weeks are marked provisional for roughly five weeks after they close.
- Known limits: the panel is a sample, not a census; AIS coverage inside some Chinese yards is thinner than elsewhere, which if anything understates China.