The east coast of South America is providing some well established shipyards. The majority is expectedly located in Brazil as the largest country of the continent whose shipyard industry is benefiting from the huge national offshore industry. Rigs and the large and growing fleet of OSVs sailing in Brazilian waters demand quite some repair berths. Brazil had adopted highly protectionist policies with crosssubsidies, which were channelled to develop the ship building industry. Even pure ship repair facilities are being still jump-started: Nearly a billion USD are invested in Lucena, on the coast of the northeast state of Paraíba, for the installation of the Brazil Basin Drydock Company (BBDC). It is said that this new facility is designed to compete with the best repair yards in the world and will be the first dedicated ship repair yard for medium and large-sized ships in the South Atlantic basin. It is claimed that no other ship repair yard in the area will have respective resources. At its maximum capacity, it will be able to dock more than 120 ships per year.
