Shipyards Directory

Kyokuyo Shipyard Corporation

shipyard Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan

Kyokuyo Shipyard Corporation is a Japanese shipbuilder and ship repairer founded in 1942 and based at Chofu, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, adjacent to the Kanmon Strait. It specialises in small and medium-sized merchant vessels, with feeder container ships (its sub-10,000GT "JAPANMAX" series), pressurised and semi-refrigerated LPG/gas carriers, reefer ships, cement carriers and high-performance coastal vessels as its main products, plus one-off and niche designs such as RORO, PCC/PCTC, MPC and tankers. The yard is known for its in-house design strength and its patented SSS-BOW spherical bow, which it says reduces wind resistance by up to 50%, and has won Ship of the Year awards. Alongside newbuilding it handles roughly 200 repair, survey, conversion and casualty jobs a year in its single repair dock.

Kyokuyo Shipyard Corporation

Founded in October 1942 in Shimonoseki, Kyokuyo Shipyard Corporation builds and repairs small and medium-sized merchant ships at its Chofu head office and works. The company positions itself as a design-led yard, pursuing small-batch, high-value and technically difficult projects alongside standard series designs. It developed the SSS-BOW spherical bow in-house, patented in Japan, Europe, the USA, China and Korea, and has won Ship of the Year awards for vessels including CITY OF ST. PETERSBURG, NATORI, GENBU, SOMEI and KANGEI MARU. Capital is JPY 100 million, with 195 employees plus around 260 contractor workers (June 2026) and FY2025 sales of JPY 21.292 billion. ISO 9001 was obtained in 2000.

Services

  • Design and construction of steel, aluminium, FRP and wooden vessels
  • Ship repair: periodical/docking surveys, casualty repairs, conversion and life-extension work, afloat and voyage repairs (around 200 jobs a year on average)
  • Marine engine and machinery manufacture and repair; steel structure fabrication
  • In-house hull and machinery design, including 3D shipbuilding design systems
  • Custom and one-off vessel development for niche requirements
  • Zero-emission ship development, including a "3-segment ship" concept and a gas-fuelled LPG carrier project

Facilities

  • Site 57,674 m²; building floor area 17,761 m²
  • No.1 building dock: 155.0 m x 23.4 m x 8.1 m, up to 23,000 G/T
  • No.2 repair dock: 125.0 m x 21.4 m x 8.1 m, up to 6,900 G/T
  • Fitting-out quays: 50 m, 152 m and 80 m (6 m low-water / 10 m high-water depth)
  • 22 cranes including a 120 t jib crane; all-weather block assembly shop with 28 m under-crane height and 60 t block turning; all-weather blasting shop
  • NC plasma cutting and internal fabrication shop, machine shop, pipe warehouse, cogeneration power plant, owner's supervisor offices

Vessel Types

  • Feeder container ships up to about 1,100 TEU (JAPANMAX), geared and gearless; reefer container ships
  • Pressurised and semi-refrigerated LPG/gas carriers (also ammonia, VCM, propylene, butadiene capable)
  • Reefer ships from about 150,000 to over 400,000 ft³, including -50°C ultra-low temperature and onboard fish processing types
  • Cement carriers, 4,000–12,000 t cargo class, mechanical, pneumatic or hybrid discharge
  • High-performance coastal vessels, RORO, PCC/PCTC, MPC and tankers

Location

  • Head office and works: 8-7 Chofu Minatomachi, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi 752-0953, Japan, next to the Kanmon Strait