ASMAR - Astilleros y Maestranzas de la Armada

ASMAR is the Chilean Navy's shipyard organisation, an autonomous state enterprise whose roots go back to the naval arsenals of 1895 and which took its present legal form in 1960. It runs three yards. Talcahuano is the biggest and does the heavy construction, Valparaiso holds the corporate offices and a repair yard, and Magallanes at Punta Arenas serves the far south and the Antarctic traffic. Around 2,900 people work across the three. Four business lines are offered: naval construction, repair and modernisation of navy ships, repair of merchant and fishing vessels, and repair and calibration of industrial equipment.

Construction has produced most of the modern Chilean patrol fleet. The OPV-80 series built under Fassmer licence delivered Piloto Pardo and Comandante Toro in 2008 and 2009, then a heavier second pair, Marinero Fuentealba and Cabo Odger, with ice strengthened hulls, anti freeze systems for cold water operation and a 76mm gun in place of the earlier 40mm mount. The yard also built the survey ship Cabo de Hornos and, for Iceland, the multipurpose coast guard vessel Thor. The largest single achievement is the icebreaker Almirante Viel, a polar class 5 ship commissioned in 2024 with a range of 14,000 nautical miles and sixty days endurance, the first icebreaker of its type built in the South Pacific. Work now centres on Escotillon IV, a class of multipurpose amphibious and logistic ships. The first, LPD-93 Magallanes, was launched at Talcahuano in June 2026 and the second, Rapa Nui, had its first plate cut in August 2025.

Repair is the steadier revenue. ASMAR has carried out refits of Chile's Type 209 and Scorpene submarines covering hull recovery, electric motors, diesels and battery replacement, and it handles frigate conversion and modernisation touching combat systems, sonar, machinery and habitability. Foreign navies from Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, France, the United Kingdom, Uruguay and the United States have used the docks. Commercial work runs alongside, with tuna vessel conversions, tank and insulation renewal, propulsion and steering overhaul and ballast water treatment retrofits designed in house.

The smaller lines matter to the balance. Industrial equipment repair and calibration serves mining and manufacturing customers, and the yards build fishing vessels, aquaculture equipment and the Pumar range of semi rigid and inflatable boats. ASMAR also owns most of the combat systems firm SISDEF and shares the SOCIBER dock operation with Navantia of Spain, which keeps a domestic electronics and integration capability attached to the shipbuilding base. The geography drives the split between yards. Talcahuano sits beside the main naval base and takes new construction and the deepest refits, Valparaiso covers the central coast and the commercial traffic through the busiest port in the country, and Magallanes handles Antarctic support and the southern fishing fleet, where a vessel cannot easily be moved north for a dock. All three hold ISO 9001 certification, and the accounts are published under Chile's transparency law.