Port Chairman Tours Karpower Shipyard as $3 Billion Plan and 713-Acre Lease Talks Move Forward
$50.6 million. 136 acres. 713 acres. $3 billion. 1 gigawatt.
Those are the numbers behind a recent visit by Brownsville Navigation District Chairman Sergio "Tito" Lopez to the Karpower Valley shipyard at the Port of Brownsville.
According to an announcement of the visit, Lopez toured the facility and learned about the company's operations and future plans. The announcement described Karpower Valley as transforming the former Seatrium AmFELS shipyard into an industrial hub for shipbuilding and energy infrastructure, including vessel construction and conversion, floating power plants and equipment for the energy sector.
The announcement did not say why the visit happened or when. Public records show the Port and Karpower have unfinished business.
The landlord and the tenant
The Brownsville Navigation District governs the Port of Brownsville. Its elected board approves port leases. Lopez has served on that board since he was first elected to Place 5 in 2008, according to the Port. He owns Jonick-Lopez International Transport, which operates in Brownsville and Matamoros.
Karpower Valley is a U.S. affiliate of Karpowership, the Istanbul-based operator of floating power plants. Karpowership is part of Karadeniz Holding. It owns about 50 powerships, ships that carry power plants and supply electricity to markets that need it.
Singapore-based Seatrium agreed to sell the AmFELS yard to Karpower Valley in September 2025 for about $50.6 million. The sale needed the Port's approval of a lease transfer. The district's board approved transferring the 136-acre AmFELS lease to Karpower Valley in December 2025, according to RGV Business Journal. The sale closed January 30, 2026, according to Seatrium.
Seatrium did not take all of its payment up front. According to the terms Seatrium announced, S$50 million of the S$65 million price was deferred and due one year after closing. That would place the payment around the end of January 2027.
The bigger deal
In mid-April 2026, the board authorized port executives to negotiate an expanded lease with Karpower Valley covering 713 acres, according to RGV Business Journal. That is more than five times the original lease. The value of that lease was not available at the time. The board declined to be interviewed because the deal was still being negotiated.
I could not find a public record showing that the 713-acre lease has been finalized. Its rent, term and conditions have not been made public in any document I located.
The 713-acre negotiation is the largest open item between the Port and Karpower. The Port has not said whether the chairman's tour was connected to it.
More than a shipyard
The announcement of the visit focused on shipbuilding. Karpower's own plans go further.
According to RGV Business Journal, which reviewed port meeting records, Karpower Valley plans to spend $3 billion on renovations and construction. The company also plans a 1-gigawatt power plant at the port, with room to expand to 2 gigawatts.
Port meeting minutes quoted by the Journal list the uses Karpower intends for the site. They include building and repairing rigs, platforms and other marine structures, manufacturing power generation equipment, building floating power plants and building floating data centers.
The company's website goes further still. Karpower Data says its flagship development starts at Karpower Valley in Brownsville. It describes the site as designed to host hyperscale AI data centers with on-site power generation, natural gas pipelines, fiber and industrial-scale cooling. Karpower's corporate site says it builds pre-commissioned power units for hyperscale AI data centers that need power supplied directly on site, outside the traditional grid.
Karpowership has already signed one floating data center deal. In July 2025, its affiliate Kinetics announced a plan with Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines to convert existing ships into floating data centers.
The Brownsville site has a Karpower vessel on hand. In March 2026, the LNG terminal ship LNGT Europe docked at the Karpower Valley shipyard, according to the company.
The jobs math
Karpower Valley expects at least 1,500 jobs during operations and up to 2,500 during expansion and renovations, according to port meeting records cited by RGV Business Journal. The company also told the Port it expects to add 21.4 gigawatts of power generation capacity in the U.S. market by 2031.
The phased numbers are smaller. Phase one would cost $1.5 billion, support 230 construction jobs and employ 75 to 100 workers. Phase two would support 600 to 900 construction jobs and 300 to 400 manufacturing and shipbuilding workers. Phase one construction was expected to start by the end of 2026. Later phases were projected for 2027 or 2028.
These figures are company projections. They are not confirmed hires.
Before the handoff, Seatrium AmFELS laid off 91 workers at the site in November 2025, according to state records cited by RGV Business Journal. Karpower Valley has been hiring, including some former AmFELS workers, according to the Port. The shipyard is also a state Enterprise Zone project. That program can provide state incentives tied to job creation and retention.
What the yard was
The AmFELS yard has built and repaired offshore rigs and vessels for decades. Its most recent major delivery was Charybdis, the first U.S.-built wind turbine installation vessel, for Dominion Energy. Seatrium said all contracted projects at the yard were completed before the sale closed.
The yard is moving from building ships for offshore wind to building gas-fired power infrastructure for the AI economy.
Shipbuilding has deep roots at the Port of Brownsville. What the port is now negotiating is something new: a 713-acre industrial power and data center campus on public land. The terms of that deal belong in public view before the vote, not after.
SOURCES
Rio Grande Valley Business Journal, "Turkish shipbuilder plans $3B investment to build 'floating data centers' and more at Port of Brownsville," May 13, 2026
Rio Grande Valley Business Journal, AmFELS layoffs report, Oct. 2025
Port of Brownsville, statement on Seatrium sale, Sept. 24, 2025
Port of Brownsville, BND Commission biography of Sergio Tito Lopez
Seatrium sale completion, via Ship & Offshore and Riviera Maritime Media, 2026
PortNews, sale terms including deferred payment, Sept. 2025
WorkBoat and FreightWaves, Sept. 2025
Karpower Valley, Karpower Data and Karpower About pages, karpowerusa.com
Offshore Energy, MOL and Kinetics floating data center announcement, July 2025
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