HD Hyundai and Kiewit plan a new US shipyard to build navy support ships and hull blocks

South Korean shipbuilder HD Hyundai and the US engineering and construction group Kiewit have announced plans for a joint venture that would build a new shipyard in the United States, with US Navy auxiliary vessels among the ships it is meant to produce. The venture, called HD Kiewit Shipbuilding, would also build commercial vessels and fabricate ship blocks and modules for other American shipbuilders, the companies said on Thursday.

Construction is planned to begin in 2027, with full-scale operations targeted for 2029, according to Breaking Defense and The Maritime Executive. The partners said the yard could support up to 3,000 full-time jobs once it is running. Reuters, in a report carried by gCaptain, said HD Hyundai described the agreement as a signed deal and said the new yard was expected to expand US shipbuilding capacity and deepen shipbuilding cooperation between Seoul and Washington.

The companies did not name a location. They said the project would use an existing industrial site with deep water and unrestricted access to the Gulf of Mexico, which Breaking Defense read as a sign that the yard would be on the Gulf Coast. gCaptain noted that Kiewit already runs a large offshore fabrication complex at Ingleside, near Corpus Christi in Texas, where it has built heavy offshore energy structures and where the two firms signed their first shipbuilding partnership agreement in July.

Under the plan, HD Hyundai would contribute its shipbuilding technology and experience of running yards, while Kiewit would bring large-scale fabrication and construction capacity backed by its affiliate Kiewit Offshore Services, The Maritime Executive reported. The partners also intend to widen their cooperation into maritime infrastructure. Hannae Choi, an executive vice president at HD Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering, called the proposed venture an important milestone in the group's effort to become a strategic partner to US shipbuilding.

The yard is to be built around HD Hyundai's Future of Shipyard model, which uses digital twins, automated production systems and robotic welding to raise productivity, quality and safety. gCaptain said that approach could matter in the United States, where labour shortages, ageing infrastructure and inefficient production have pushed shipbuilding costs among the highest in the world.

The announcement follows South Korea's pledge to put 150 billion dollars into US shipbuilding as part of a wider 350 billion dollar investment package agreed with the Trump administration in July 2025 in exchange for lower tariffs on Korean goods. That shipbuilding programme is known as Make American Shipbuilding Great Again, or MASGA. gCaptain reported that a Korea-US Shipbuilding Partnership Center opened in Washington in July to coordinate investment, technology transfer and workforce training under the programme, with 15 agreements signed at its launch.

HD Hyundai already has several links to the US defence industry. Breaking Defense recalled that the company signed a memorandum of understanding with HII last year to look at military and commercial shipbuilding together, and that the two launched a pilot in August to deploy mechanised welding equipment at HII's Ingalls Shipbuilding division. Kiewit Maritime is part of the Kiewit Corporation, which has built bases, shipyards and other defence projects for the US military.

The plan differs from the route taken by Hanwha, South Korea's other major shipbuilder in the US market. According to gCaptain, Hanwha bought Philly Shipyard for 100 million dollars in 2024 and in August 2025 set out a 5 billion dollar plan to lift the Philadelphia yard's output from fewer than two vessels a year to as many as 20, while also pursuing US naval work. HD Hyundai is instead proposing a new, purpose-built facility.

The block and module business may be the quickest way for the venture to feed US programmes, gCaptain argued, because supplying prefabricated hull sections to existing yards would not require a complete ship order of its own. The scale of the challenge remains large: citing BIMCO data, the outlet said Chinese shipyards now hold 64 percent of the global commercial shipbuilding order book, against 19 percent for South Korea and 6 percent for Japan.