{"id":76582,"date":"2026-02-04T22:13:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T01:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shipping.einnews.com\/article\/889484716"},"modified":"2026-02-04T22:13:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T01:13:25","slug":"turkish-shipbuilder-to-launch-ares-naval-in-saudi-arabia-with-two-shipyards-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/turkish-shipbuilder-to-launch-ares-naval-in-saudi-arabia-with-two-shipyards-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish shipbuilder to launch ARES Naval in Saudi Arabia with two shipyards: CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BEIRUT \u2014 Turkish shipbuilder ARES Shipyard plans to establish a new company in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia dubbed ARES Naval with Saudi local partner Sat-el Arab, ARES CEO O\u011fuzhan Pehlivanli told Breaking Defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to establish two shipyards for ARES Naval in Saudi Arabia: one in Dammam and the other in Jeddah. The final goal is having two shipyards over there related to manufacturing naval platforms and focusing on supporting the end users with maintenance, repair and overhaul,\u201d Pehlivanli told Breaking Defense in a January interview.<\/p>\n

He added that ARES will hold most of the shares in the new firm. He said ARES Shipyard will focus especially on \u201cthe [new] Saudi Arabia company, and working with the government side, especially [Saudi naval firm] Sofon. Sofon is the main [contractor] responsible for the naval projects and the main requirement from the Saudi Navy and Coast Guard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CEO said that his company\u2019s major concern is \u201cexport projects,\u201d saying that beyond the new Saudi partnership, they are in discussions <\/mark>\u201cto establish a stronger presence in GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGCC is one of the top export markets for ARES in the future,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n

Pehlivanli spoke to Breaking Defense on Jan. 19 during the naval expo Dimdex 2026 that took place in Qatar. There, an ARES-made ULAQ unmanned surface vessel was on display at the stand of the Qatari coast guard. Pehlivanli told Breaking Defense that Qatari coast guard operates two intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) ULAQ USVs but with configuration different from the Turkish<\/a> vessels.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurkish configuration is an anti-surface warfare, which has an optional payload for anti-submarine warfare. The size is 12 meters. But the [11-meter] Qatari version is totally different. It\u2019s an ISR intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance vessel which is equipped with an electro-optical director, a remote weapon station,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pehlivanli said <\/mark>that the Qatari version of ULAQ can perform missions related to \u201cillegal immigration and survival operations for the refugees, outfitted with automatically detachable life rafts.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that ARES Shipyard <\/mark>is \u201cstill discussing with Qatar coast guard for the bigger versions for ULAQ. We are still waiting for the evaluation from the Qatar coast guard command.\u201d<\/p>\n

ARES Shipyard will attend World Defense Show next week, where it will exhibit models of its systems and offer <\/mark>coproduction of its systems.<\/p>\n

Co-production with Gulf States, Pehlivanli said, is \u201cone of our goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

This comes in line with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia\u2019s Vision 2030<\/a> which eyes to reach 50 percent <\/mark>defense production localization by 2030, and which mandates foreign firms to have a footprint in the Kingdom, through producing their platforms locally or joining forces with Saudi national firms for coproduction.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT \u00e2\u0080\u0094 Turkish shipbuilder<\/span> ARES Shipyard plans to establish …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}