Mumbai: Engineering and cconstruction major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) will set up a major state-of-the-art shipbuilding yard at a cost of Rs1,500 crore.

The company has identified three locations – Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh and Mundhra in Gujarat for the project.

Once the location is finalised in the next few weeks, the project is expected to be commissioned by 2009-2010.

The L&T shipyard would have the capability to manufacture any type of ship, including frigates and destroyers for Navy and the Coast Guard.

L&T already has a shipbuilding yard at Hazira, Gujarat, but the area there is not adequate for expansion and for making large ships.

The new greenfield ship building yard, to come up on a 1,000-acre area, would have the capability to make all types of ships, including high-tech vessels, such as CNG, LNG carriers and containers up to 3 lakh dead weight tonnes (DWT), reports quoted L&T senior vice president MV Kotwal as saying.

Though India has 28 ship building yards, the largest ship built in the country is a 45,000 DWT vessel at Kochi Shipyard and none of the country''s shipyards have the capability to manufacture high-tech or sophisticated ships.