Hindustan Shipyard Plans to Convert Kakinada Port Slipway into Second Shipbuilding Base

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 29, Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL), a Miniratna Category-I enterprise under the Indian Ministry of Defence, and Kakinada Seaports Limited (KSPL) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Mumbai during the INMARCO conference to assess the use of KSPL's existing slipway and jetty facilities for HSL's shipbuilding operations. The MoU was signed by Rear Admiral Chandrasekharan Raghuram, Chairman and Managing Director of HSL, and K.V. Rao, Chairman and Managing Director of KSPL.

The two parties will first conduct a detailed assessment of KSPL's slipway, jetty and supporting facilities to determine their current capabilities; after identifying gaps, the MoU provides for infrastructure upgrades—either strengthening existing structures or adding new ones—so that the site's dimensions and load-bearing capacity match the vessels HSL may build.

The core of this cooperation is to reconfigure the port's existing launching and outfitting infrastructure into shipbuilding capacity, rather than waiting for a greenfield shipyard to be completed. A slipway is an inclined platform on which hulls are assembled and launched; a jetty provides berths for subsequent outfitting and completion. Building such facilities from scratch requires substantial time, land and capital.

HSL's approach is to assess whether Kakinada's existing operational maritime assets can form a second shipbuilding base with relatively low upfront investment. HSL's main shipyard is located in Visakhapatnam and has an enclosed dry dock capable of handling 80,000 DWT vessels, with operations covering naval submarine refits and special vessels such as ocean surveillance ships. KSPL operates the Kakinada deep-water port, which has been in operation since March 1999 under a concession from the Government of Andhra Pradesh and is the first privatized port in Andhra Pradesh.