South Korea's Hanwha has spent approximately US$350 million on facility improvements at Philly Shipyard in Pennsylvania since acquiring it in December 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported on October 25.
The group aims to have the yard transition from building auxiliary vessels to combat ships by 2028, including obtaining certification for combat ship construction. According to the newspaper, Hanwha has authorised an additional US$400 million in investment through the end of 2027.
A new training centre is planned, along with equipment that uses virtual reality for painting instruction, welding tools and collaborative robots of the type used at Hanwha's yards in South Korea.
The expansion faces high production costs, shortages of suppliers and subcontractors, difficulty recruiting labour and limited room for additional facilities. Uncertainty over how many vessels the Pentagon will order over the longer term is an added obstacle to investment.
"Our goal is to increase orders from the US Department of Defense," Alex Wong, the Hanwha Group’s Global Chief Strategy Officer, told the newspaper. "The next step is to have commercial and naval shipyards operating side by side."
On September 22, the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development authorised a master lease giving the shipyard approximately 47.5 acres (19.2 hectares) across six additional Navy Yard properties. The authority said the yard had nearly 2,000 full-time employees and intended to add up to 5,000.
A dispute over financing under South Korea's US$150 billion US shipbuilding initiative has delayed parts of the Philadelphia expansion. In August 2025, Hanwha announced a US$5 billion infrastructure programme for the yard aimed at raising annual output from fewer than two vessels to as many as 20.
Hanwha Systems and Hanwha Ocean completed the US$100 million acquisition of Philly Shipyard on December 19, 2024. The group is also negotiating to acquire Austal USA.
