Vigo's shipyards have the highest activity in Spain
Galicia reached 44% of the national naval order book in the first semester
Shipbuilding orders held by Galician private shipyards currently represent 44% of the total orders in Spain. We would have to go back 14 years to find a higher percentage—50% in 2011. The Ministry of Industry's first half of 2025 report confirms the strong momentum the shipbuilding industry is experiencing thanks to the Vigo shipyards boost, which have some twenty vessels in operation.
Galicia is followed by Asturias with 37% of the national order book, and the Basque Country with 18%. Galician community ended the first half of the year with 25 ships out of 61 in Spain as a whole. Freire, with 7 ships under construction, and Armón with 6 are the shipyards with the highest workload currently. Ría de Vigo shipyard (formerly Barreras and owned by Armón) has three and Cardama has four. Nodosa, in Marín, has another three and Blascar, in Ferrol, two, while Vigo-based Metalships has none, according to the latest bulletin from the State Secretariat for Industry.
More than 90% of the vessels being built are for foreign countries. Cardama's are for Uruguay, Senegal, and the United Kingdom; Freire's are for France, Canada, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and Denmark; Ría de Vigo's are for France, Iceland, and the United Kingdom; and Armón's are for the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. Nodosa has orders for New Zealand, Argentina, and Spain, and Blascar for France and Spain.
Oceanographic research vessels are one of the segments in which Vigo shipyards are working the most. This is the case with Armón, which has two in the final stages of construction for delivery at the end of this year. One is the "Azores Ocean" for Portugal, and the other is the "Anna Weber-van Bosse," commissioned by the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), which visited the Vigo shipyard a few days ago to inspect the condition of the vessel it will add to its marine scientific fleet.
Metalships to install a dock for ship repair
Vigo shipyard, Metalships, has requested an administrative concession from the Vigo Port Authority to occupy a 5,730-square-meter watershed in Ríos, Teis, for the installation of a 9,500-ton floating dock for ship repair activities, according to the Official State Gazette (BOE). The company also requested permission to occupy a 33,080-square-meter land area and approximately 5,500 square meters of watershed for shipbuilding and repair, as well as to carry out processing, sorting, and sorting of naval materials for subsequent recycling.
Metalships, part of Rodman group, has been working on large-scale ship repair, conversion, and maintenance projects for several years, although it does not have any shipbuilding activity, as recorded in the official registry of the State Secretariat for Industry.
Source: Atlántico Diario