French firm Exail wins 40m euro order for mine-clearing sea drones built in Ostend
French defence and technology group Exail has secured an order worth about 40 million euros for several hundred underwater drones that will be built at its factory in Ostend. The drones are intended for “various navies”, although the company is not revealing which countries placed the order for security reasons.
The K-Ster drones are used to neutralise sea mines. They are single-use devices and cannot be deployed again after destroying a mine.
This is Exail’s second-largest order for the drones, following a 60 million euro contract in 2024 linked mainly to the Belgian and Dutch navies through NATO’s procurement agency.
Exail says its order book now includes more than 1,000 autonomous drones. Production in Ostend, where around 120 people were employed last year, is now fully operational to support major mine-countermeasure programmes. The site opened in 2022 and continues to expand.
Exail Technologies, formed from the merger of ECA Group and iXblue, employs about 2,000 people worldwide and reported 373 million euros in revenue in 2024. The group is partly listed on the Paris stock exchange and is controlled by the French Gorgé family.
The company said the announcement helped push its share price up by more than 10 per cent on Monday morning.
#FlandersNewsService | © PHOTO ANP REMKO DE WAAL
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