The Nhava facility is expected to become operational by the end of the year. It will be used for building large sized ships such as the next generation destroyers as well as repair ships.
State-run Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd, India's top warship builder, is erecting the country's biggest floating dry dock at Nhava island near Mumbai as part of a Rs 5,000 crore expansion plan to help undertake large size ship orders, ET Infra reports.
The contract for building the floating dry dock, measuring 180 metres /44 metres and 19.5 metre high, valued at Rs475 crores, was awarded to privately-run Shoft Shipyard Pvt Ltd.
Mumbai-listed Mazagon Dock's investment in the 40-acre Nhava facility is expected to be Rs1,000 crores plus including developing the jetty and facility for holding the vessel, dredging and other associated works.
The floating dry dock is being built in six blocks which will be towed to the Nhava jetty of Mazagon Dock for assembling and launching, a person with knowledge of the plan said. The dry dock is so high it cannot be built as a single piece.
Shoft Shipyard has completed four blocks at its yard located at Bharuch in Gujarat while the remaining two blocks are being constructed. These blocks will be transported to the Nhava jetty sometime in March, the person said, adding that "Mazagon Dock is going for a big makeover to cater to the huge orders from the Indian Navy, the Coast Guard as well as future commercial orders".
The Nhava facility is expected to become operational by the end of the year. It can dock vessels of up to 12,800 tons of docking weight and will be used for building large sized ships such as the next generation destroyers as well as repair ships. It will be able to construct eight ships simultaneously.
Separately, Mazagon Dock will develop a shipbuilding cum ship repair facility on 15 acres of land, adjacent to its existing yard, leased from Mumbai Port Authority.
The shipbuilder plans to erect a graving dry dock of approximately 180 meters by around 60 meters of width, and other ancillary facilities which can double up for both shipbuilding and ship repairs.
At its existing facility, Mazagon Dock can handle 11 submarines and 10 warships at a time.
"With the additional capex, the capacity would be practically doubling, not only in terms of numbers, (but) in terms of size of the vessels also, much larger vessels we will be able to handle," Chairman and Managing Director, Sanjeev Singhal told analysts during second quarter earnings call on 5 November.
Mazagon Dock, Singhal said, is "gainfully utilising" the cash balance of some Rs 4,000 crores for capacity enhancement.
"Whatever infrastructure is being created; this is being created for large size ships. And as per the requirement, whatever submarines are required, that can be handled with the same infrastructure, because submarines are smaller in dimension," Singhal stated.
"We are looking for export orders. We are looking for commercial (orders). And we are looking for repairs of large vessels, which currently we are not in a position to undertake," he added.
Biju George, Director Shipbuilding, said that the yard is facing capacity constraints in commercial shipbuilding.
"On the non-defence side, if we have to take (orders) right now, we have to outsource it completely because our capacity for commercial shipbuilding is almost full. So, once the new facilities come up, then we will have a captive capacity for taking these (commercial) vessels and executing it on our own. Non-defence has offshore also. We have made good progress there," George added during the 5 November earnings call.