Montenegro bourse delists defunct Bijela shipyard

Jadransko Brodogradiliste's liquidation was published in the Official Gazette on December 12, and the company was removed from the official register of companies in Montenegro, CRPS, on January 23, according to the statement.

Jadransko Brodogradiliste was once the largest maintenance and repair shipyard dock in Montenegro. It was declared bankrupt in 2015 over 6 million euro ($6.4 million) of unpaid tax debt. Its bankruptcy administrators have since organised several auctions to sell its assets.

In 2018, the Montenegrin government awarded a 30-year concession to a consortium of local firm Porto Montenegro and Dutch-based Damen Shipyards Group to build and develop a yacht and megayacht repair centre on the location of the former shipyard. The government has said the project would require a 20 million euro investment over a period of three years.

At the same time, the government took over the obligation to clean the shipyard's contaminated soil and blasting grit waste prior to the start of the yacht refit centre project. It hired French asbestos removal and soil remediation firm Valgo, which completed the cleanup in 2022. Montenegro's Environmental Protection Agency has said that the cleanup project was worth 23 million euro and was supported by the World Bank.

In the meantime, Damen Shipyards Group exited the 30-year concession deal with the Montenegrin government. In November 2020, the government signed an annex to the concession contract transferring Damen's stake to Dubai's state-owned ship repair company Drydocks World.

($ = 0.931 euro)