South Korean Yard Completes Repairs for USNS Amelia Earhart
South Korea’s HJ Heavy Industries completed a larger-than-planned overhaul and repair project for the Military Sealift Command supply ship USNS Amelia Earhart and redelivered the ship to the U.S. Navy. The project is in keeping with the U.S. Navy’s “Indo-Pacific Maintenance Capability Enhancement” policy, which is designed to undertake maintenance and overhaul work in the region to reduce the vessel’s time away from service and out of the region, while also reducing the amount of work on the already stretched shipyard facilities in the United States.
While the U.S. had already sent several other ships from the Lewis and Clark dry cargo ship class for maintenance in South Korea, this project was the first time that a mid-sized Korean yard had won and successfully undertaken one of these projects. HJ Heavy Industries had assembled a team with other suppliers for the project, enabling it to compete with Korea’s largest shipbuilders. In the past, Hanwha Ocean and HD Hyundai had won the first overhaul assignments from the United States.
USS Amelia Earhart is a 40,000-ton logistics support ship. It was placed in service in 2008. The ship measures 210 meters (689 feet) in length. It supplies up to 6,000 tons of ammunition, food, and cargo, as well as 2,400 tons of fuel to support the ships of the U.S. Navy.
The contract for the vessel’s overhaul was awarded in December 2025, and it arrived at the Yeongdo Shipyard in Busan, South Korea, in January. It originally called for a three-month overhaul period.
HJ Heavy Industries reports it undertook an inspection as part of the planned maintenance of the hull, major systems, and equipment. Numerous “defects” that were not included in the original contract, however, were identified, and HJ Heavy Industries also proposed improvements to the plan. The U.S. Navy accepted the proposal, and as a result, the scope was extended by six months.
The handover was completed on October 14. The U.S. Navy provided a letter of appreciation to the yard and commended it for the work completed on the ship.
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HJ Heavy Industries looks to build on the success of the first project. It is targeting follow-up orders.
Since starting the policy of forward deployment repairs, the Navy and Military Sealift Command have conducted overhauls in South Korea, India, and Japan. They have also sent warships for maintenance in Japan instead of the normal policy of rotating them back to the United States. The U.S. recently also placed one of its guided-missile destroyers, USS Arleigh Burke, in a dry dock in Spain for maintenance, the first time the Forward Deployed European fleet had used a commercial shipyard for regular maintenance work.
