BLRT Western Shipyard is a shipyard in

Klaipėda Klaipėda (; ; german: Memel; pl, Kłajpeda; russian: Клайпеда; sgs, Klaipieda) is a city in Lithuania on the Baltic Sea coast. The capital of the eponymous county, it is the third largest city and the only major seaport in Lithuania ...

, Lithuania. The company belongs to the

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n company

BLRT Grupp BLRT Grupp (Balti Laevaremonditehas) is a shipbuilding company headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia. In addition to Estonia, the company owns shipyards in Lithuania, Finland and Norway. Its shipbuilding and ship repair subsidiaries are Tallinn Sh ...

and provides

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befo ...

and repair services in the Baltic region.

History

In 1952, during the

Soviet occupation During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into two different ...

, a new shipyard called (Baltija Shipbuilding Yard) was established. In 1969, another shipyard called (Western Ship Repair Factory) was built. Following the restoration of independence, the government of Lithuania privatized the shipyards. In 1997, ''Baltijos laivų statykla'' was sold to a Danish company Odense Steel Shipyard, while in 2001 ''Vakarų laivų remonto gamykla'' was sold to the Estonian company

. In 2010, the ''Baltijos laivų statykla'' was taken over by the

, thus merging both shipyards under the Western Baltija Shipbuilding within the Western Shipyard Group.

Activities

The main activities of the company are shipbuilding, ship repair and conversion, complex ship design and engineering as well as metal construction. In 2011, the shipyard built the largest

LNG Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volu ...

-powered Norwegian ferry ''MF Boknafjord''. In June 2020, the largest floating dock (235 m long and 45 m wide, with lifting capacity of 33,000 tons) in the Baltic States was installed in the shipyard.

References

External links

Official website of the Western Shipyard

Official website of the Western Baltija Shipbuilding subsidiary
Shipyards of Europe Shipbuilding companies of Lithuania Shipbuilding companies of the Soviet Union Manufacturing companies established in 1952 1952 establishments in Lithuania Companies based in Klaipėda Lithuanian brands {{lithuania-stub