As Congress and the Trump administration prepare to ramp up public subsidies for U.S. shipyards , Korean shipbuilder Hanwha plans to spend more than $70 million upgrading two thousand-foot-long former Navy dry docks in South Philadelphia so the company can build nearly one ship a month, up from today’s pace of one every eight months, Hanwha leaders told investment analysts at a meeting in Seoul earlier this week.

Hanwha wants to refit the Philly Shipyard and add facilities elsewhere on the Delaware River to build the first made-in-U. S. A. liquid national gas (LNG) carriers, according to an account of the company’s presentation reported in the Korea Economic Daily and reprinted in U.S. maritime publications.

The planned expansion of the yard would boost sales of Philly-built ships to $4 billion a year from less than $400 million last year, Hanwha told the analysts. Hanwha also has plans to operate its own shipping fleet, partly as a way to keep from losing skilled workers during the industry’s slow periods, according to people familiar with Hanwha’s plans.

Double-hulled, multi-tanked LNG ships require waterproof marine welding, as well as durable cooling and power systems. Hanwha has said it plans to more than double employment at the South Philadelphia yard to around 4,000 by 2034, adding design engineers and marine welders, among other specialties.

LNG ships are used to export U.S. gas, gelled into liquid at temperatures below 261 degrees Fahrenheit, at gas liquification plants near Baltimore; Savannah, Ga.; Anchorage, Alaska, and the Gulf of Mexico oil ports , to Europe and elsewhere, as an alternative to pipelines.

Hanwha, which operates the vast former Daewoo shipyards in South Korea, also hopes to build unmanned vessels for the U.S. Navy and has been updating Sealift fuel and ammunition transports. The U.S. Navy has encouraged seagoing drone development, as the Ukrainian Navy’s success using drones against ships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet feeds worries that U.S. aircraft carriers and other expensive surface ships have become much more vulnerable, even obsolete.

Employment at the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard stood at 1,700 last year when Hanwha bought it from investors led by Norway’s Aker for $100 million, a fraction of the federal and state subsidies that helped make Philly the largest of a handful of commercial shipbuilders in the U.S. in recent years.

To build larger ships, Hanwha says it needs more space than what it purchased from Aker. It controls the two largest dry docks at the former Navy yard, one of which lacks gates and is used mostly as a pier. Both would need substantial upgrades to be used to build commercial-grade ships, the company says.

Two smaller dry docks are controlled by Rhoads Industries, a ship-repair company that has used state and federal funds to expand in recent years.

Hanwha, its Washington allies and lobbyists have approached the Navy about moving ships in its “mothball fleet” out of the Reserve Basin at the center of the former base to another U.S. location, so adjoining docks and sheds could be used for shipbuilding.

Some ships in that fleet have been sold to U.S. allies; others are used for spare parts to keep aging Navy ships running. Hanwha has said it is also scouting riverside sites in New Jersey and Pennsylvania where it might construct a longer pier for bigger ships and other uses.

Shipbuilding in most countries has been a money-losing business that requires government contracts and subsidies to compete with low-cost, high-volume China-based shipbuilders, which in recent years have accounted for more than half world ship construction.

Worried about U.S. dependence on ships built and managed by China, a bipartisan group of Congress members last month reintroduced the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security (SHIPS) Act.

SHIPS and President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14269 would set up a government Maritime Security Board to implement a federal strategy coordinating U.S. ship construction and subsidies. A Maritime Trust Fund would use tariffs, plus fines on Russian and Chinese vessels used to ship U.S. cargoes, to pay for shipyard improvements. The Coast Guard would take charge of imposing fees designed to drive trade to U.S. cargo ships.

SHIPS would also allow tax breaks for U.S. shipyard improvements and ship construction; subsidize training for maritime workers and students entering Merchant Marine schools to serve as U.S. cargo ship officers, and use Department of Defense funds to repair Navy and Coast Guard ships in commercial yards.

The Philadelphia area is one of a handful of surviving U.S. shipbuilding centers. Others include the Gulf Coast and the San Diego area.

The SHIPS Act, Trump’s order and the current level of bipartisan support in Congress gives Philadelphia leaders a “unique opportunity” that could result in a “renaissance of its maritime assets,” port consultant Susan Howland wrote recently in a white paper circulated among port leaders.

Howland added that Hilco’s nearby redevelopment of the two-square-mile former Sunoco refinery along the Schuylkill “could also potentially benefit from new federal targeted investment” in shipbuilding.

Hilco officials are working to lure biotech labs, at least one national corporate headquarters, as well as potential port and shipbuilding businesses and warehouses to the sprawling site.