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Turkish shipbuilder ARES Shipyard plans to establish a new company called ARES Naval in Saudi Arabia with local partner Sat-el Arab, aiming to build two shipyards in the kingdom as part of an expansion targeting Gulf Cooperation Council markets.
ARES Shipyard CEO Oguzhan Pehlivanli told Breaking Defense that the company will hold most of the shares in the new firm, with shipyards planned for both coasts of the kingdom.
"Our goal is to establish two shipyards for ARES Naval in Saudi Arabia: one in Dammam and the other in Jeddah," Pehlivanli said in a January interview with the defense media outlet.
"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," he added.
Pehlivanli said ARES Shipyard will focus especially on "the Saudi Arabia company, and working with the government side, especially Sofon. Sofon is the main contractor responsible for the naval projects and the main requirement from the Saudi Navy and Coast Guard."
The CEO said his company's major concern is export projects, noting that beyond the Saudi partnership, ARES is in discussions "to establish a stronger presence in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region."
"GCC is one of the top export markets for ARES in the future," he stressed.
The Saudi expansion aligns with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, which aims to reach 50% defense production localization by 2030 and mandates foreign firms to have a footprint in the kingdom through local production or coproduction with Saudi national firms.
"Co-production with Gulf States is one of our goals," Pehlivanli said.
Pehlivanli spoke to Breaking Defense on Jan. 19 during the naval expo DIMDEX 2026 in Qatar, where an ARES-made ULAQ unmanned surface vessel (USV) was displayed at the Qatari coast guard stand.
The CEO revealed that the Qatari coast guard operates two intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ULAQ USVs with a configuration different from Turkish vessels.
"Turkish configuration is an anti-surface warfare, which has an optional payload for anti-submarine warfare. The size is 12 meters," Pehlivanli said.
"But the 11-meter Qatari version is totally different. It's an ISR intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance vessel which is equipped with an electro-optical director, a remote weapon station," he noted.
The Qatari version of ULAQ can perform missions related to "illegal immigration and survival operations for the refugees, outfitted with automatically detachable life rafts," he added.
The CEO said ARES Shipyard is "still discussing with Qatar coast guard for the bigger versions for ULAQ. We are still waiting for the evaluation from the Qatar coast guard command."
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