Cochin Shipyard Ltd is the largest shipbuilding and maintenance facility in India. It is part of a line of maritime-related facilities in the port-city of Kochi, in the state of Kerala, India. Of the services provided by the shipyard are building platform supply vessels and double-hulled oil tankers. Presently it is building the first indigenous aircraft carriers for the Indian Navy, the. Cochin Shipyard was incorporated in 1972 as a Government of India company, with the first phase of facilities coming online in 1982. The company has Miniratna status. The yard has facilities to build vessels up to 1.1 lakh tons and repair vessels up to 1.25 lakh tons, the largest such facilities in India. In August 2012, the Government of India announced plans of divestment to raise capital of Rs. 15 billion for further expansion through an Initial Public Offering towards the end of the fiscal year. However, this did not materialise until August 2017, when the company conducted its IPO and listed its shares on the BSE and NSE. The government finalised the decision of stake sale on 18 November 2015. 33.9 million shares of face value Rs. 10 Each will be sold, out of which the government is holding shares while the others are fresh equity. The shipyard also trains graduate engineers in marine engineering. Around one hundred students are trained each year.
Shipbuilding
The first ship to roll out of the Cochin Shipyard was the MV Rani Padmini in 1981. The yard has delivered two of India's largest double-hull Aframax tankers each of. CSL has secured shipbuilding orders from internationally renowned companies from Europe and the Middle East. The shipyard is building six bulk carriers for Clipper Group of the Bahamas and the first three vessels have been launched. Eight platform supply vessels for the Norwegian Seatankers Management Company, are also under construction. Cochin Shipyard is currently building India's first indigenous aircraft carrier., is the first aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy to be designed and built in India. The carrier will be the largest warship built by CSL. The construction is expected to be completed by 2020.
The shipyard started offering ship repair services in 1982 and has undertaken upgrades and repairs for all types of ships including ships for the oil exploration industry as well as scheduled maintenance and life extension for ships of the Indian Navy, Indian Coast Guard, the Union territory of Lakshadweep, Fisheries and Cochin Port Trust, SCI and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. It has performed major overhauls for the aircraft carrier, INS Viraat. It has also performed major overhauls for the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya two times on 2016 and 2018 respectively. Recently CSL was awarded major maintenance and upgrade orders from ONGC. This included major overhaul of three rigs, Mobile Offshore Drilling UnitSagar Vijay, Mobile Offshore Drilling UnitSagar Bhushan and Jackup rigSagar Kiran.
