Drydocks World, a DP World company, has joined the Maritime Emissions Reduction Centre (MERC), expanding the consortium’s technical capabilities and industry collaboration.
The agreement brings one of the world’s leading ship repair and retrofit yards into the Athens-based non-profit collaboration, co-founded by the Lloyd’s Register Maritime Decarbonisation Hub and major shipowners including Capital Group, Navios Maritime Partners, Neda Maritime Agency, Star Bulk and Thenamaris (Ships Management) Inc., with support from Lloyd’s Register.
The Maritime Emissions Reduction Centre (MERC) develops practical, scalable solutions to cut shipping emissions, combining technical expertise, operational insight and cross-industry collaboration to accelerate the shift to lower-carbon shipping.
Drydocks World strengthens MERC’s next phase of work with deep engineering and retrofit expertise, particularly in integrating advanced technologies on operating vessels. As shipyards play a growing role in deploying energy-efficiency systems, its experience will help shape how solutions are evaluated, prioritized and implemented across vessel types.
The partnership comes amid intensified R&D, including deeper analysis of efficiency technologies, onboard system integration, hydrodynamics, wind-assisted propulsion, alternative auxiliary power and data-driven optimization.
As a Centre Member, Drydocks World brings critical yard-level expertise to ensure solutions are technically feasible, scalable and deliverable within real-world operational and drydocking constraints, while aligning retrofit and conversion capabilities with evolving regulatory and European shipowner requirements.
Nikos Kakalis MD – MERC
“Drydocks World’s involvement provides an essential layer of applied engineering experience that complements MERC’s technical and analytical work. The organization brings the kind of practical insight that is only gained through decades of delivering major retrofit projects. This expertise will help us understand not only what is technically possible, but what can be delivered efficiently and safely in a real shipyard environment.”
Captain Rado Antolovic, PhD, CEO of Drydocks World, said that, “Joining MERC allows us to contribute our engineering and retrofit experience to a collaborative effort that is focused on solutions the industry can actually implement. The challenges of decarbonizing the existing fleet require practical, evidence-based approaches, and we see real value in working alongside MERC’s partners to help shape technologies and integration strategies that will work across different vessel types.”
