BLRT Western Shipyard () is a

shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are shipbuilding, built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes m ...

Klaipėda Klaipėda ( ; ) is a city in Lithuania on the Baltic Sea coast. It is the List of cities in Lithuania, third-largest city in Lithuania, the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, fifth-largest city in the Baltic States, and the capi ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. The company belongs to the

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

n company BLRT Grupp and provides

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation th ...

and repair services in the

Baltic region The Baltic Sea Region, alternatively the Baltic Rim countries (or simply the Baltic Rim), and the Baltic Sea countries/states, refers to the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea, including parts of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. Un ...

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 three differe ...

, 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

privatized the shipyards. In 1997, ''Baltijos laivų statykla'' was sold to a Danish company

Odense Steel Shipyard Odense Steel Shipyard () was a Danish shipyard company located in Odense. It was best known for building container ships for its parent group, Maersk, A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, including the Mærsk E-class container ship, Mærsk E class in ...

, while in 2001 ''Vakarų laivų remonto gamykla'' was sold to the Estonian company BLRT Grupp. In 2010, the ''Baltijos laivų statykla'' was taken over by the BLRT Grupp, 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 to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

-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 The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

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 Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1952 1952 establishments in Lithuania Companies based in Klaipėda Lithuanian brands {{lithuania-stub