Seatrade-Maritime: Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding boosting production capacity

Published by Seatrade-Maritime

In a booming newbuilding market China’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding has set out plans to grow its production capacity.

As a strategic long-term initiative to strengthen and refine its core marine equipment manufacturing business, the capacity consolidation and enhancement project kicked off by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding aims to fully unlock the shipyard’s development potential, eliminate existing capacity bottlenecks, optimize overall production layout, and consolidate fundamental manufacturing infrastructure.

Chen Jianliang, Chairman of Hudong-Zhonghua, stated, “The newly launched capacity project will build brand-new specialized final assembly lines and supporting facilities, focusing on boosting the mass and intelligent construction capacity of high-end vessels including large LNG carriers and ultra-large container ships.”

Hu Xianfu, Deputy General Manager of CSSC, pointed out that the shipbuilding industry epitomises a country’s maritime strength and comprehensive industrial competence. High-end, high-value-added vessels such as large-scale LNG carriers and ultra-large container ships serve as core benchmarks for national shipbuilding capabilities.

“As the world’s largest shipbuilding group, CSSC prioritises the upgrading of high-end vessel construction capacity to fulfill its responsibility as a central state-owned enterprise in advancing China’s maritime and manufacturing power strategies. Hudong-Zhonghua will take this project as a new starting point to promote integrated development of smart, green and lean manufacturing.”

Changxing Island functions as China’s core manufacturing base for high-end marine equipment and a strategic hub for the national shipbuilding industry. Hudong-Zhonghua’s capacity upgrading project will serve both the company’s high-quality growth and the national maritime power strategy and Shanghai’s industrial layout planning for the 15th Five-Year Plan.

As a pioneer in China’s LNG carrier construction industry, Hudong-Zhonghua has delivered a total of 65 LNG carriers, spearheading the innovative and high-quality development of the domestic LNG shipbuilding sector. To date, the shipbuilder holds nearly 60 large LNG carrier orders, including 24 units of the world’s largest 271,000-cubic-meter LNG carriers, with its full production schedule firmly booked through 2030 and beyond.