Chernomorsky Shipbuilding Yard

There are actually three shipyards located in Mykolaiv: Black Sea Shipyard, Okean Shipyard, and 61 Communards. The Black Sea Shipyard is located in Mykolaiv, Ukraine and is the largest shipyard on the Black Sea. It is most often referred to as the "Nikolayev South Shipyard" and was known as "Soviet Shipyard No. 444". The shipyard constructed the "Moskva"-class helicopter ships, "Kiev"-class VSTOL aircraft carriers, naval auxiliaries, commercial ships, and submarines. They also began construction on the legendary Stalingrad battlecruiser but was canceled after Stalin's death in 1953.

The shipyard is specialized in building of middle and heavy-tonnage vessels of various types and appointment with volume of steel processing up to 60 thousand tons, welded constructions about 30 thousand tons. Total volume of manufactured vessels in amount up to 60 thousand tons per year is provided by means of production modernization and optimization stipulated in «the Concept of SJSHC ChSZ development».

On August 27, 1789, Prince Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin signed an order to construct a shipyard at the mouth of the river Inhul. The shipyard, simply called "New Shipyard on the Ingul river", was to serve for the repair of the Russian Navy ships in the Russo-Turkish war.

Later Potemkin ordered the shipyard to be named Nikolaev, to commemorate the fall of the Turkish fortress Achi-Kale [Later renamed _ru. Ochakov] to the Russian troops under his command on December 6, 1788, close to the day of Saint Nicholas (patron saint of seafarers)–which is December 19, in the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1897, the shipyard was established as the "Nikolayev Shipbuilding, Mechanical, and Iron Works"––a Belgian-owned enterprise. By 1898, it was constructing ships including the battleship Potemkin.

Early in the Soviet era, the shipyard was renamed to the "Andre Marti (South) Yard (Shipyard No. 198)". During these early years, the yard constructed surface warships and Dekabrist-class submarines. In January 1938, the Chairman of the People's Commissar Council, declared the following: It was then the government introduced the 10-year "Big Shipbuilding Program". The plan included the construction of battleships and heavy cruisers which would represent the ocean might and strength of the country.

On October 19, 1940, the government decided to terminate battleship and heavy cruiser construction. It was ordered to concentrate all their efforts on small-size and medium-size warships building. However, the completion of ships of various classes, laid before, continued. On the whole, the Soviet shipbuilding was once again re-directed for submarines and light surface ships construction. Nevertheless, By the 1950s, an estimated 65 Whiskey-class submarines, the "Sverdlov"-class light cruisers, and the "Stalingrad"-class battlecruiser were built.

During the 1960s, the "Moskva"-class helicopter ships and the "Kiev"-class VSTOL aircraft carriers were constructed. The "Kiev"-class "Admiral Gorshkov" was launched in 1982 and later in 1985 the "Admiral Kuznetsov" was launched. The "Kuznetsov"'s hull design is based on the "Admiral Gorshkov" but is larger with a full load displacement, 58,500 tons as compared to Gorshkov's 40,400 tons."Kuznetsov Class (Type 1143.5) Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser, Russia".

Commercial ships and naval auxiliaries were, and continue to be constructed there. Commercial ships are primarily dry-cargo ships, fish-factory ships, and large trawlers. In the late 1970s, the shipyard constructed two large trawlers for the State Committee of Fisheries of Ukraine.

The yard's largest slipway is 1,082.6 ft. (330 m) long and 131.2 ft. (40 m) wide and two cranes of 900-ton lifting capacity are able to handle sections of more than 1,500 tons. The main part of the shipyard are the following work-shops: the slipway work-shop, the outfitting work-shop, the plating work-shop, the work-shop for assembly and welding of flat and volumetric sections. The assembly and welding work-shop is designed to fabricate volumetric block-section up to 180 tons, which during manufacturing are outfitted with welded parts and pipelines in double bottom and double side compartments. Modern technologies of metal cutting and welding, use of standard articles, improvements of dimensional accuracy, introduction of integrated automation lines, module fitting-out of rooms enable to realise flexible methods of construction of any ship project and adapt easily to clients' technical requirements.

The Chernomorsky Shipyard built a tanker for Greece and 2 trawlers for the State Committee of Fisheries of Ukraine in the late 1970s. Shipbuilding for export has been yielding to losses in Ukraine since 1995, partially due to the state's economic and monetary policy during 1993-1995. Furthermore, high overheads and over-manning, together with relatively low use of production capacities, and other internal problems, have served to increase the costs in shipbuilding. Enterprises have worked out a set of measures to reduce shipyard production costs. These measures aim at minimising the cost of raw and completing materials, equipment, counterpart operations, wages, overhead and power expenses, etc. These measures have already resulted in a reduction of prime cost of vessels by 10-18%. For example, the prime cost of the vessel being built at Chernomorsky Shipyard under project 17012 was reduced by US$ 6 million. The Municipal Council of Nikolayev made a part of the housing stock and welfare fund of Chernomorsky Shipyard, 61 Communars Shipyard and Okean Shipyard, a municipal property. "That was a great help to the yards because, in 1997 alone, they had to spend 30 million Hrivnyas on maintenance of those properties.

The joint-stock company Chernomorsudoproekt is one of the leading ship design firms in Ukraine. It was founded in 1956 around the design personnel of Nikolayev shipbuilding enterprises. And over 40 types of vessels have been built at Ukrainian shipyards according to its designs. Chernomorsudoproekt specialized in creating designs for dry cargo vessels, including those for work in the Arctic. The designs of universal vessels of the Bezhitsa type (35 ships built), Slaviansk type (42) Kapitan Kushnarenko type, are well remembered in the former USSR. They designed scientific research vessels, including those accompanying space craft, drilling, fishing vessels, auxiliary vessels for the Navy. According to Chernomorsudoproekt's designs the Okean yard in Nikolayev built 25 big tonnage bulkers of the Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and Khariton Greku type (52.5 thousand dwt), Chernomorsky shipyard built unique high speed ro-ro ships of the Kapitan Smirnov type, and Kherson yard - built LASH carriers of the Alexey Kosygin type.

The Commission for Re-adjustment, Restructuring and Bankruptcy of Enterprises at Ministry of Industrial Policies of Ukraine has worked out and approved the projects for restructuring Chernomorsky Shipyard. In particular, the state owned enterprise Meridian shipyard has been established on the base of Chernomorsky shipyard.

The shipbuilding industry in Ukraine consists of eight major shipyards along with several large suppliers of marine equipment. Over 80 percent of ship production takes place in the southern city of Nikolayev. Nikolaev has three large shipyards that place orders for delivery of any type of vessel: the shipyard "Okean", the Chernomorsky shipbuilding yard and the "61 Communard" shipyard. Nikolaev is located in the southern part of Ukraine, about 500 km south-east from Kiev, 120 km from Odessa and 60 km from the Black Sea on a peninsula formed by the Southern Bug and Ingul rivers. Through the Dnieper - Bug Estuary Nikolaev is connected with the Black Sea and the great Ukrainian river Dnieper. This made it possible to locate sea and river ports in Nikolaev.

All over the world Nikolaev is well known as a city of shipbuilders. Strong ties link Nikolaev closely to merchant fleet and Navy, due to location of three shipyards, where vessels and ships of various types, from bulk-oil carriers to aircraft carriers have been under construction. Approximately 75 industrial enterprises are connected with shipbuilding. Gas turbines, air conditioning systems, machine tools, conveying and metal cutting machinery produced in Nikolaev operate in different enterprises of marine technology and industry. The heavy industry has suffered from the reduction of military orders and rupture of links with former Soviet republics. Now they are facing the problem of reconversion, privatisation and spin-off companies on their base creation.

After the Eurasian Economic Union bilateral agreement between Russia and Ukraine, there was another agreement, which concerned buildings of gas tankers for Russia. Gas tankers would be constructed for Russia on Nikolaev shipyards. The contract with the Ukrainian enterprises for the amount of $4 billion was concluded in December 2013 within the bilaterial agreement between Vladimir Putin and Victor Yanukovych. The Russian ship-building factories were completely loaded with work now, and the Ukrainian enterprises could offer cheaper production of similar quality. The vice-premier of Ukraine Yury Boyko stated that building of tankers will be made at Nikolaev ship-building factories. The contract between two states is concluded for 6 years, up to 2020. By preliminary estimation, Russia ordered 20 tankers to the Nikolaev shipyards.