L&T Kattupalli Shipyard

Kattupalli Shipyard is operated by Larsen and Toubro Limited under the L&T Shipbuilding brand, on the Tamil Nadu coast north of Ennore Port and about 40 kilometres from Chennai. L&T Shipbuilding Ltd was amalgamated into Larsen and Toubro Limited on 1 April 2019. The yard is not part of the adjacent Kattupalli commercial port, which Adani controls through MIDPL; they are separate businesses on neighbouring land, and directories and encyclopaedias regularly conflate them. The site has 2.2 kilometres of waterfront with up to 16 metres of water. Docking is on a shiplift with a transfer system designed and built by L&T, feeding dry berths and wet berths so that more than one platform can be built or repaired at a time. The berths carry cranes, power supply, fire mains and cooling water. Coating and pipe shops are sized to take the whole yard load, with an electrical shop and a machine shop beside them and separate shops set aside for repairs, refits and mid-life upgrades. More than 80 per cent of pre-outfitting is done at block level. Newbuilding is aimed at defence and government customers: frigates, destroyers and corvettes, submarines, landing platform docks, survey, diving and research vessels, cadet training ships, offshore patrol vessels, floating docks, interceptor craft and fast boats. Delivered programmes include 54 high speed interceptor boats and seven offshore patrol vessels for the Indian Coast Guard, a floating dock, two multi-purpose vessels and three cadet training ships for the Indian Navy, patrol boats for a foreign navy, and a submersible platform for DRDO. Repair covers docking of all ship types and of submarines, hull treatment and steel renewal, hydro-jet and grit or copper-slag blasting to SA 2.5, tank coating, main engine overhauls, controllable pitch propulsion and coupling work, propeller reconditioning to class approved procedures, deck machinery, hydraulics and pneumatics, stainless steel, titanium and copper-nickel piping, HVAC and refrigeration, and electrical, navigation, instrumentation and control systems. Completed work includes the medium refit of the Indian Navy fleet tanker INS Jyoti and of Indian Coast Guard offshore patrol vessels, voyage repair availability on United States Navy solid support ships and a rescue and salvage ship, and selected and assisted maintenance periods on a Royal Fleet Auxiliary landing dock ship and hospital ship. The yard holds ISO 9001:2015, ISO 45001:2018 and ISO 14001:2015, works to ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus in cyber security, and was awarded a five star grading in a British Safety Council occupational health and safety audit in April 2019.