Nuclear-powered attack and ballistic-missile submarines are built at the Huladao shipyard. As one of the principal enterprises subsidiary to China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, Bohai Shipyard is a large factory engaged in shipbuilding, repairing, steel structure processing, metallurgy equipment and large hydroelectric equipment fabrication and also the official research base for important technical equipment.
The shipyard borders on the northern coast of Bohai Gulf and the famous Huludao Port is located in the center of the yard. China's nuclear powered submarines were built at Huludao Naval Base and Shipyard in the northern Bohai Gulf. The first Xia-class SSBN was launched in April 1981, and deployed in January 1989 to the Jianggezhuang Submarine Base [aka Qingdao / Ch'ing-tao], where the nuclear warheads for the JL-1 SLBM are reportedly stored.
Established in 1954, the yard covers 4,500,000 m2. The yard has various kinds of advanced equipment, such as the seven-span type indoor shipbuilding berth [the largest in China], outdoor berths covering more than 20,000 m2 as the extension of the indoor ones, a unique 40,000 ton-class dual-stage water-filled drydock, the largest indoor bridge cranes in China which have the combined lifting capacity of 640 ton by two cranes joint operation, and the 260 m ?50 m semi-dock berth (100,000 tonnage class) with 480 tons of gantry crane capacity where could built various vessel up to 150,000 DWT.
Bohai Shipyard was conferred the ISO9002 certificate of in 1994. Since 1994 the yard has engaged in the international shipbuilding market and contracted with various owners in the world, such as Germany, USA, Singapore and Canada etc. for building 28,200 DWT log/bulk carriers; 29,000 DWT multi-purpose bulk carriers; 35,000 DWT product oil tankers and so on. Sales volume in terms of the foreign currency is about one hundred million United States Dollars per year.
The yard has been awarded the enterprise honor of AAA class every year since being authorized to export vessels to foreign customers in 1996. The military products developed and fabricated by the yard have been awarded two medals of the National Science and Technology Advanced Special Prize. The yard had developed and built more than 140 vessels by 2000. Among them, the first river-sea shallow draft 10,000DWT coal carrier in China was awarded the National Science and Technology Advanced Prize; the first 35,000 DWT shallow draft economical bulk carrier was awarded the special grade prize of the essential technical facilities awarded by the State Council; the 35,000 DWT product oil tanker was evaluated as the National Class New Product.
The shipyard has expanded into non-marine products, including metallurgy, electric power, railroad and chemical engineering markets. The yard has built a hot blast-furnace and a 250 ton converter for Bao Steel, along with the rotor core for a 300,000 kW hydraulic turbine generator and the platreating reactor of the hot steel wall with production of 800,000 tons per year. The yard has attained the license of design and fabricating pressure vessels of Class I, Class II and Class III.
The Liaoning Shipbuilding Group, formed in late 1997, includes Bohai Shipyard, Dalian Shipyard and Dalian New Shipyard. In April 1997 the State Planning Commission approved the construction of a shipbuilding facility for vessels of 100,000-dwt at the Bohai Shipyard. At a cost almost $24 million, when completed at the end of 1998 it was able to build 2.5 ships annually.
In June 1997 Sembawang Corp. [SembCorp] and Jurong Shipyard Ltd. (JSL) merged, creating one of the world’s largest ship repair groups. SembCorp’s ship repair and conversion assets include Sembawang Shipyard in Singapore, as well as a 50 percent stake in Bohai Shipyard in Tianjin, China, and a 65 percent stake in PT Karimun Shipyard. In early 1998 Bohai Shipyard announced that it had cut 500 employees, about 10 percent of its personnel.