Ship repair in Somalia: the skills a dry dock would need

Where Xidig members may contribute

These are learning and skills opportunities, not confirmed jobs or contracts.

• Trainers: welders, fitters, marine engineers and electricians who can teach to international standards.
• Boat and engine repair: outboard and inboard engine servicing, fibreglass and wooden hull repair for fishing fleets.
• Safety: occupational safety for hot work, confined spaces and coatings.
• Planning: naval architects and port engineers who can assess what kind of repair facility fits Somalia's fleet.

Possible services, research, supplier or collaboration roles

• Short courses in boat-engine and fibreglass repair at fishing ports, with TVET centres. See TVET and industry: where professionals can help.
• Welder training and testing to an international standard, so certificates are recognised abroad.
• A study of repair demand: how many vessels, what size, where they go for repairs now, and at what cost.
• Links with regional yards in Kenya or Djibouti for apprenticeships.

Who may find this useful

• Welders, fitters, marine engineers and electricians.
• TVET centres and maritime training institutes.
• Fishing cooperatives and boat owners.
• Port and maritime officials.

How ship repair works, and what Somalia has

What a dry dock is.

• Graving dock: Britannica describes a dry dock as a basin dug into the shore with a gate, "used for major repairs and overhaul of vessels".
• Floating dock: "a trough-shaped cellular structure, used to lift ships out of the water for inspection and repairs".
• Slipway: a platform on which ships are "secured and winched out of water into a working area", as Kenya's shipyard uses (Nation, 2021).

The government's proposal does not say which type it would use.

What a yard needs.

• Trades: the International Labour Organization's code of practice for shipbuilding and ship repair (2019) covers welding, flame-cutting and hot work, abrasive blasting, painting and coatings, work in confined spaces, and docking operations. It applies to all facilities, "pier, dry dock, building dock, slipway" and others.
• Competence: the code expects work to be done by a "competent person", meaning someone with "suitable training and sufficient knowledge, experience and skills for the safe performance of the specific work".
• Certificates:
  • Welders are commonly tested to standards such as ISO 9606-1, "Qualification testing of welders — Fusion welding — Part 1: Steels".
  • Repairs on most larger ships are checked against the rules of classification societies. Their association, IACS, sets "minimum technical requirements in relation to the design, construction, maintenance and survey of ships".
  • STCW, the IMO convention, covers seafarers (deck, engine and radio officers), not shipyard workers.

Maritime training in Somalia.

• A new institute: in May 2026 the federal government opened the Somali Maritime Science Institute in Mogadishu, described by Dawan as "the country's first formal institution dedicated to marine science education and maritime resource management". The report does not mention engineering or repair courses.
• Training abroad: in April 2026 Somali marine pilots from Mogadishu began specialised training at the Technical University of Mombasa in Kenya, as "part of the first cohort admitted to the university's Institute of Maritime and Seafaring Studies" (Dawan).
• Security training: most donor-funded maritime training has been for security and law enforcement, for example IMO port-security workshops in Berbera and Bosaso (2024), a US-funded training centre for police and coast guard in Mogadishu (2022), and EU training for maritime officers (2025).
• Seafarer certificates: Somalia is not on the IMO's list of countries confirmed to give full effect to the STCW convention (the latest revision Xidig found, from October 2021). Kenya is on it. Xidig could not confirm whether Somalia is a party to the convention.

What neighbours built.

• Kenya: Kenya Shipyards, a Ministry of Defence entity at Mombasa, opened in December 2021 with a slipway for vessels "of more than 4,000 tonnes and 150 metres". Kenya's Ministry of Defence describes visits there to learn about "refit, repair and maintenance of ships and other maritime vessels". At its opening, Nation reported that it would "for the first time in Kenya's history employ its own certified ship welders", since "all ship welders in Kenya are foreign".
• Djibouti: a ship-repair yard with a 217-metre floating dock was inaugurated in April 2026. Maritime Executive reports its cost at €107.5M, similar in scale to the Mogadishu proposal's US$112.2M, but gives no figure for jobs.

Somalia's own fleet.

• Fishing boats: the fisheries ministry's 2024 report to the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission counts about 5,800 inboard-engine and 7,200 outboard-engine fishing boats in 2023, "between 3–10 meters, typically made of glass-reinforced plastic or wood".
• Boat building: FAO worked with a boat-builder in Bosaso in 2017 to build fibreglass fishing boats under a UN youth-employment programme.
• Larger vessels: Xidig found no count of Somali-flagged merchant ships or dhows.

Ports. The Mogadishu Port Authority's website describes plans for a new port about 35 km north of the city, with a special economic zone. It does not mention a dry dock or ship repair. Xidig found no 2024–2026 report of a Mogadishu dry-dock or shipyard project beyond the government's proposal.

What this means (Xidig's interpretation). A large dock would only work with a trained workforce, and Kenya's experience suggests that takes deliberate effort. Somalia's thousands of small boats offer a place to start: engine and hull repair skills taught at fishing ports now would build the base a larger yard would later need.

Dependencies and implementation constraints

• Trained, certified workers, which Somalia does not yet have in numbers.
• Demand: enough vessels needing repair to keep a yard busy.
• Power, water and supplies such as steel plate, paint and spare parts.
• Port space and agreement with the port operator.
• Safety systems for hot work, blasting and confined spaces.

Risks and unknowns

• Competition from established yards in the region, including Djibouti's new yard.
• A costly facility with few jobs: the proposal expects 50 jobs for US$112.2M.
• Unsafe work where training and safety rules are weak.
• Unknown demand: there is no public count of larger vessels needing repair.

Questions members should verify before acting

1. What type of dock is proposed, and for what size of vessel?
2. Who would train and certify the workers?
3. How many vessels go abroad for repair each year, and to where?
4. Are there TVET courses in welding or marine engines that could be expanded?

What is confirmed, and what isn't

Confirmed

• Xidig found no dry dock or ship-repair yard in Somalia.
• The opening of the Somali Maritime Science Institute (May 2026) and pilot training in Kenya (April 2026).
• The Kenyan and Djibouti yards, as reported.
• The ministry's counts of fishing boats (2023).

Our interpretation

• Small-boat repair is the realistic first market for these skills.
• A large dock depends on building a certified workforce first.

Not yet verified

• Any Somali course in welding, marine engines or boat repair.
• Somalia's status under the STCW convention.
• How many jobs a yard of this size typically creates.

Relevant next steps

• Ask the Ministry of Public Works, Reconstruction and Housing and the Ministry of Ports and Marine Transport what type of dock is planned and who would train its workers.
• Trainers: contact the new maritime institute and TVET centres in port cities about short courses.
• Fishing cooperatives: identify local repair needs.