Navantia has announced that on 6 July 2025 its shipyard in San Fernando (Cádiz) laid the keel for the first vessel in the second batch of Avante-class corvettes ordered for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF).
The corvette will be the shipyard’s 571st construction and will be named HMS Al-Madinah.
The milestone event was marked by a ceremony attended by the RSNF chief of staff, Vice Admiral Mohammed Abdlrahman Alghuraybi; and the Saudi ambassador to Spain, Princess Haifa bint Abdulaziz Al-Mogrin, among other Saudi representatives. They were received at the shipyard by the Navantia President Ricardo Domínguez and Alberto Cervantes, the director of Navantia’s corvette and maritime action vessel business.
The Saudi Ministry of Defense (MoD) ordered its first five Avante 2200-class corvettes from Navantia in 2018, all of which are now in active service. The Saudi MoD then ordered an additional three corvettes of the same class in December 2024, the last of which is scheduled for delivery in 2028.
Once the keel was placed on the slipway of what will be the sixth corvette built for the RSNF, those attending the ceremony then headed to the ‘José Antonio Rodríguez Poch’ Flat Open Unit Workshop, where the RSNF chief of staff signed a plaque commemorating the milestone. A Navantia worker then welded his signature onto the plaque.
Later, at the Flat Open Unit Workshop itself, the first steel plate was cut for the third of the corvettes included in the second batch, meaning that Navantia has now started the production of all three units. Finally, the vice admiral and the ambassador signed the shipyard’s Book of Honor in the presence of the Navantia chairman.
The first steel cutting for the third corvette comes just over three months after that for the second corvette.
Regarding the second batch of corvettes, Navantia will be responsible for the delivery of the first unit, while the second and third will be completed in Saudi Arabia with the installation, integration and testing of the combat system, as was the case with the previous batch.
The contract includes the supply of an integrated logistics support package and crew training, along with a period of operational evaluation of the ships by the Spanish Navy at Rota Naval Base, where Navantia will provide support services. In addition, Navantia will train around 100 Saudi engineers.
Navantia’s Avante 2200 corvette is a multi-purpose vessel specifically designed for maritime traffic surveillance and control, search and rescue, and assistance to other vessels, among other missions. In addition, Avante 2200 corvettes have significant capacity for the defence of strategic assets and intelligence operations, as well as possessing anti-submarine, anti-aircraft, anti-surface and electronic warfare capabilities.
