Military

Wuchang Shipyard
Wuhan, China
30°32'N 114°17'E

Ziyang Road, Wuhan, P.R.China
Zip Code:430060
Tel: 00 86 27 8077872
Fax:00 86 27 8077801

The Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan is responsible for conventional submarine construction. Products include military ships such as Cruise-missile submarines, Medium sized conventionally powered submarines, New type and modernized submarines, Heavy landing ships, Minesweepers and Sea salvage ship. Wuchagn Shipyard, founded in 1934, was subordinated to the China State Shipbuilding Corporation prior to the 1999 formation of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation.

Wuchang Shipyard is the biggest modern and comprehensive shipbuilding enterprise in inland China. The shipyard covers an area of 820,000 square meters. With the capability to design, build and repair various type of civil ships below 8000DWT and military ships of 3000t, it has constructed and exported multipurpose cargo ships of 3830/6130 DWT, anchor handling / tug supply vessels of 4800KW, submarines and mine sweepers to Germany, Norway, Hongkong, Egypt, Bangladesh and etc, and all those ships have got approval by the International Classification Societies like CCS, GL, DNV and etc. Nowdays, all the ships are being constructed by a completed, advanced shipbuilding prodution line.

The shipyard's business line extends to various fields such as aero space, metallurgy, petrochemistry, harbour machinery, munipal infrastructure, bridge, steel structure and building materials etc. The shipyard has obtained the certificate to design and fabricate pressure vessels of grade I, II, III, and the certificate to manufacture and install many kinds of completed sets of machinery and electric equipment. In recent years, it has completed several state key projects like a large satellite launching pad, Xi Ling Yangzi River Bridge, No. 3 lock gate of Gezhouba Dam, Jingguang Mansion, 1000000 heavy oil catalytic cracking unit, 100,000M3 dry gas holders, shiplifters and hydropower stations.

Many of jthe yard's products have been awarded the state silver prize, the first, second and teh third prize of the state high science and technology,and the superior quality prize of the government and etc. Moreover, the shipyard is authorized as the second largest military industry measuring station in the centre of China, and granted the right to do import and export business directly.

Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group Co.,Ltd (“WS”), an affiliate of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, is a typical large modernized & integrated enterprise that provides products & services for both the military and the civilians, and develops in many diversified but related fields. It was founded in 1934 and listed among the 156 national major construction projects of the “First-Five Year” plan. In January, 1953, it was renamed Wuchang Shipyard, restructured to Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Co., Ltd in February, 2009, and renamed Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group Co.,Ltd.

WS has maintained continuous growth in these years. Now WS boasts over 11000 employees and total assets amounting to 30,000,000,000 Yuan, and covers an area of 6,000,000 square meters. The three manufacture bases, namely Wuchang Headquarters, Qingdao Haixiwan and Wuhan Shuangliu, and the coordinated six product divisions, namely military industry & trade, civil vessels, bridge equipment, oceanographic engineering equipment, complete plant and steel structure, have been gradually established. The main economic indicators of WS have maintained a double-digit growth rate for 23 consecutive years since the 1990s; and in 2013, the output value, the value from market development and the sales income of WS all exceeded 10,000,000,000 Yuan.

International prevailing quality and EHS management systems have been established in WS; it holds the Class 1 license for the scientific research and production of national weaponry, and 60 other qualifications, including that for the design & manufacture of Type 1, 2 & 3 pressure vessels and that for the Class 1 professional contracting of manufacture and assembly of hydraulic metal mechanisms, and thus it is the enterprise with the most qualifications for professional contracting of advanced projects.

WS, a modernized base for the building of submerged and surface vessels, has created complete military industry manufacture codes and established a process system through independent innovation, and made significant contribution to the updating of the naval equipment and national defense of China. The military products fabricated by WSIC have been exported to many countries or regions, such as Africa, South Asia and Middle East.

WS also a major manufacture base for public service ships, work ships and ocean engineering equipment in China, has the capacity to design and build 300,000 tonnage vessels. It has built more than 1400 ships, including public service ships, working ships, offshore service ships, bulk carriers and high-speed boats. The UT788 deep-water three-use working ship represents the most advanced level in manufacture of ocean engineering equipment in the world; the “China Maritime Surveillance 50” has successfully cruised around the Diaoyu Islands; the VS series of offshore service ships have been exported to such Western European countries as Greek and Norway. As the underwater floating body project for Petrobras was delivered to the satisfaction of the customer, the CJ46 platform and the DVC5000t floating crane & pipe-laying vessel was undertaken, WSIC has put itself in the rank of high-end ocean engineering equipment manufacturers in the world.

Other shipbuilding enterprises in Hubei Province include Qingshan Shipyard of Changjiang Shipping Group, Yichang Shipyard, Hubei Shipyard, and Shipbuilding Industry Corporation of Gezhouba Water Conservancy Group. The Qingshan Shipyard is one of the important projects which was built during the first half of the 1950s. It has been developed to have various specialities, and has become a large size enterprise which has multi-production capacity in designing, repairing, and manufacturing various ships. It is one of the large inland repairing and manufacturing shipyard in China. Its neighbours include Qingshan Foreign Trade Wharf of Wuhan Port and the large size praduction enterprise--Wuhan Iron and Steel Company. Qingshan Shipyard occupies an area of 1000 thousand square meters and 2200m along Changjing shore. There are 9 working docks, 10 horizonal berths from 3,000t to 20,000t, 16 lines comblike track which has a width of 152m, inclined shipframe owning a general lift of 5,400t, 8 gantry cranes including 2 sets of 60t, 250 sets of metal processing machine, centrifugal casting machine, 1.5t 50HZ cast steel furnace, 3t steam forging hammer and a steel material pretreatment eguipment which was imported from Japan, numericaly controlled cutter, multiple cutter, numerically-controlled frame bending machine, all position automatical welding machine, and plasme-arc cutter. The fixed assets of Qinshan Shipyard is over 100 million yuan. Over the past decade it has constructed more than 150 various passenger liners, high-grade luxery cruise ships, 5,000dwt-15,000dwt rivev-coast cargo carriers, container carriers, crude oil tankers, liquid chemical products tankers, passenger-automobile ferries, large power engineering vessels, and other vessels.

Submarine Building at Wuchang Shipyard

The Wuchang shipyard was founded in 1934 and is located in Wuhan. It is the largest, modern shipyard in inland China, which would explain why it is the most productive of all the conventional-powered submarine shipyards. The first submarines constructed here were the Type 035 SS Ming-class and the Type 091 SSN Han-class; in 1974 one of each class was completed.

A total of twenty Ming-class submarines were built between 1974 and 2001, but by the end of the 1980s the first three Ming-classes had been scrapped.

The rate of submarine construction at Wuhan slowed to one submarine per year by 1983. From 1973 through 1981, at least 22 Romeo SSs and one Ming SS were built at Wuhan. Submarine construction increased slightly in 1978-1979, when three Romeos and one Ming were launched. Since 1980, a larger portion of the shipyard resources had been devoted to other programs.

Several major changes at Wuhan affected submarine construction. The most significant is the increase in the number of submarines in repair/overhaul at the shipyard. Since early 1980, at least 11 Romeos had undergone major repair/overhaul at the shipyard. Prior to 1980, little if any of this type of work was done here. Submarine repair and overhaul were usually performed in Shanghai. However, because of the increasing age of the Chinese submarine fleet and the scarcity of adequate repair facilities, a greater share of shipyard resources at Wuhan had been devoted to repair and overhaul.

The other change affecting construction has been the start of a modernization program at the shipyard. Submarine construction and repair on the buildingway at RP 95 ceased between November 1981 and April 1982. Several small river cargo barges were built after submarine construction stopped. However, by July, a large crane had been installed on the buildingway, halting the cargo barge construction. The crane had been placed on a temporary track to assist in the installation of support columns for a fabrication/construction hall. These columns, which were along the buildingway, had been stacked next to and inside the fabrication building. The only buildingway remaining in the submarine construction program was the one at RP 10.

A total of five Han-class submarines were built between 1974 and 1991; these five ended the production of the Han-class SSNs. Further, these were the only nuclear-powered submarines produced at the Wuchang shipyard, any future construction of SSN or SSBN style submarines would be constructed at the Bohai shipyard in Huludao, China.

In 1974 the Wuchang shipyard produced two submarines, the SS Ming-class and the SSN Han-class. From 1975 through 1995 this shipyard produced only one submarine per year with the exception of the years 1988 and 1991 when two were produced in those years. The two aforementioned years is when one Han-class was added to the ongoing Ming-class build-up. The year 1994 was when the yard began to lay the ground work for producing two submarines per year. During the years 1994 and 1995 the shipyard produced only one operational Ming-class submarine per year; however, a new class of SS was launched during 1994 and began sea trials in 1995, the new class of submarine is the Type 039 SS Song-class. While this new class was going through sea trials, two more Ming-classes were produced in 1996. In 1997 the shipyard did not put forth any operational boats; however, according to some reports an improved variant of the Song-class, Type 039G was launched that year.

From 1994 through 1998 the Wuchang shipyard has been constructing two submarines per year, all while incorporating new classes and improved variants. The year 1999 saw record breaking submarine production when two Ming-class and one Song-class submarines were completed. In 2000 the shipyard produced one Ming-class while working on two more Song-classes, which consequently were delivered in 2001 for a record tying three boats that year, this time it was the last of the Ming-class to be produced along with two more Song-class submarines. The three years following 2001 saw the shipyard produce one Song-class per year, but if history teaches us anything about this shipyard, it is that when there is a lull in production there is a possibility of a new submarine class being produced. This assumption proves correct when in 2005 another record tying production year when three ships are completed. The submarines completed are one Song-class and two new, Type 039A / Type 041 SS Yuan-class.

This shipyard has consistently averaged approximately two submarines per year form 1994 through 2005. Given China's ongoing modernization of its naval forces in general and the belief that submarines are the People's Republic of China (PRC) first line of defense against carrier strike groups, it is projected that the Wuchang shipyard can produce approximately two SS submarines every year as meets PLAN's requirements.