India’s state-owned shipyard Cochin Shipyard plans to expand its business scope to the European coastal shipping industry in the next few years. Last year, Cochin Shipyard signed contracts with European shipping companies for the construction of 14 ships.
Apart from entering the European market, Cochin Shipyard is also looking at green shipping as a potential revenue growth in the near future. The company plans to make green shipbuilding as an important part of the business involved, in line with the global trend of sustainable development.
It is understood that last month, Cochin Shipyard signed a contract with Norwegian Wilson ASA for 4+4 6,300 dwt bulk carriers with a total value of about $132 million, which is expected to be delivered in September 2028, according to the company.This is a follow- up order to a June 2023 contract between the parties for 6 3,800 dwt bulk carriers.
This is a follow- up order to a June 2023 contract between the parties for 6 3,800 dwt bulk carriers. In addition, the shipyard was also awarded a contract to design and build a number of hybrid service operation vessels (SOVs) earlier this year.
Currently, India accounts for less than 1% of the $140 billion global shipbuilding market, and the country is making significant efforts to improve its position in the shipbuilding industry. The Maritime India Vision 2030 aims to elevate India’s shipbuilding and repair industry to a top 10 global position, and policies are expected to be put in place soon to support the realization of this goal.
Cochin Shipyard is also actively expanding its capacity in order to realize this goals of the Indian shipbuilding industry. On January 17 this year, Cochin Shipyard inaugurated its new shipyard and international ship repair center.
As India’s largest ship repair yard, Cochin Shipyard previously had a maximum dock size of 255x43x9 meters, with two gantry cranes of 300 tons and 150 tons, capable of building ships of up to 110,000 dwt. The new dock is of stepped type, measures 310 meters in length, 75/60 meters in width, 13 meters in depth, and with a draft of 9.5 meters, which cost Rs. 18 billion (about $214 million).
The Cochin Shipyard said the new ship repair facility is a modernization and expansion of the existing ship repair capacity at Cochin Shipyard and is “a step towards transforming Cochin Shipyard into a global ship repair center”.The new dock will install 600 tons of Goliath gantry cranes, which will greatly enhance the construction capacity of Cochin Shipyard. The new dock is said to have a design life of 100 years and will enable India to build large aircraft carriers with a displacement of up to 70,000 tons.
The Cochin Shipyard International Ship Repair Center, at a cost of about Rs. 9.7 billion ($120 million), has a 6,000-ton shiplift, transfer system, six workstations, and about 1,400 meters of berths, and will be able to accommodate the repair of seven 130-meter vessels at the same time. This International Ship Repair Center has been officially put into commercial operation.