Seatrium AmFELS is laying off 91 workers as LNG-tied company aims to take over Port of Brownsville site

Seatrium AmFELS plans to lay off 91 workers at its Brownsville shipyard starting Nov. 28, the company told Texas regulators in a notice required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. 

Most of the jobs are in skilled trades, including welders, mechanics, pipefitters, electricians, and crane operators. A smaller group includes administrative staff such as accountants and clerks, according to the notice. None of the affected employees belongs to a union.

“All impacted employees have been notified individually and provided with resources to assist in their transition,” Ashley Velasquez, the company’s human resources manager, wrote in the WARN letter.

Seatrium AmFELS did not say how many employees will remain after the cuts, and the company declined an interview request about its plans.

Over the next year, there’s a new company is expected to move into Seatrium’s old site with plans to build offshore vessels for generating power with liquified natural gas, a supercooled gas product exported overseas from Texas shores. 

Shipyard with deep roots in Brownsville

The Brownsville shipyard site, where Seatrium AmFELS built ships and offshore rigs, has a long history that dates back to the early 1970s.

Singapore-based Keppel Offshore & Marine owned the facility for decades through its subsidiary Keppel AmFELS before Seatrium took over. Keppel leased the site from the Port of Brownsville beginning in the 1990s.

Over the years, the shipyard transitioned from oil rig fabrication to more renewable sources like offshore wind turbines and Jones Act vessels. The Jones Act, a law dating back to the 1920s, requires ships traveling between U.S. ports to be built, owned, and operated by U.S. companies. Supporters say the law protects American shipbuilding jobs.

Keppel AmFELS also leveraged the U.S. Export-Import Bank to secure insurance on exports valued at $198 million between 2014 and 2026, according to the EXIM Bank data.

Public incentives tied to job creation

In 2022, Texas approved the AmFELS site as a state Enterprise Zone project. The designation projected a $27.6 million net benefit for the city after tax abatements in exchange for keeping 500 jobs in Brownsville. The state valued the tax refund to the company at $1.25 million.

At the time, AmFELS employed about 1,400 people, making it one of Brownsville’s largest employers. State records show no other WARN letters filed between 2022 and 2025.

Seatrium notified Brownsville Mayor John Cowen Jr. about the upcoming layoffs, according to state records. Cowen declined to comment via a spokesperson and referred questions back to the company.

Corporate mergers and new ownership

Seatrium Ltd. was formed in 2023 after Keppel Offshore & Marine merged with Sembcorp Marine in a $3.3 billion deal.

In September, Seatrium announced it would sell the Brownsville shipyard to Turkish company Karpowership in a $50.6 million cash deal. The payment is due about a year after the sale closes.

As a result, Seatrium said it will redirect its U.S. “strategic presence,” which may refer to its employees, to its Houston engineering office and customer service center in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The deal requires the Port of Brownsville to approve the transfer of Seatrium’s lease to Karpowership’s U.S. subsidiary, Karpower Valley LLC. As of 2024, the lease was for 35 years, according to Seatrium’s annual report to investors. 

Seatrium is expected to complete existing contract work at the Brownsville site through the end of 2025.

“We look forward to working with Karpowership as they establish operations in our region, and we are confident this new partnership will create meaningful economic opportunities, strengthen our workforce, and enhance the port’s reputation,” the Port of Brownsville said in a news release.

New port business has an LNG factor 

Karpowership and Seatrium have been strategic partners in the shipyard industry. 

The companies have collaborated on both powership and LNG terminal ship conversion projects and have signed a letter of intent for Seatrium to convert three additional powerships into LNG-powered vessels.

A powership is a floating power plant that runs on natural gas, fabricated by Karpowership. 

Natural gas prices in both Texas and Louisiana have remained so low that it’s been exported for higher returns to overseas nation-states without a domestic energy extraction industry. 

LNG, or liquefied natural gas, is a compressed version of gas that would often otherwise be flared from oil wells. Instead, it can be sent through a pipeline and exported overseas as a cleaner source of electricity generation. The Texas LNG export terminal at the Port of Brownsville is nearing a final investment decision, with construction expected to finish by November 2029.

Karpowership owns and operates about 50 powerships — or floating power plants — with a combined energy capacity of 10,000 megawatts. The company also manages nearly a dozen LNG terminal ship conversion units, according to its own disclosures.

Karpowership did not respond to an interview request. It remains unclear whether the company will need the same skilled workforce previously employed by Seatrium AmFELS.