Hudong-Zhonghua commissions giant new shipbuilding facility north of Shanghai

One of China’s top shipyards, Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, has commissioned a giant new facility to boost its production of LNG carriers. 

The new $2.5bn, 432 ha yard on Changxing Island north of Shanghai will boost the state-run company’s annual LNG carrier output from six to 10 vessels once fully operational. 

Hudong-Zhonghua is a flagship site of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, and is also the yard in the People’s Republic that built the country’s first LNG carrier 17 years ago. 

Across China, many yards are undergoing expansion, with the country now in control of two-thirds of the global ship orderbook, a position of dominance that has many American politicians on edge with the Donald Trump administration looking at ways to curb this stranglehold China has on ship construction.