North Korea is building a second warship of its largest new class in Chongjin on the east coast, according to an SI Analytics nK Insight report released Tuesday, following state media’s recent reveal of the first such ship on the west coast.

Construction on the vessel started in May 2024 at the Chongjin Shipyard on the northeast coast, nK Insight said, marking the first open-source report on the project.

It added that the ship appears to be “approximately 117 meters (384 feet) in length and 16 meters (52 feet) in beam,” and that a camouflaging structure was built to cover the construction site in December when hull assembly was in an advanced stage.

NK Pro analysis shows that this ship construction at Chongjin resembles work on a confirmed warship on the opposite coast at the Nampho Dockyard, both in appearance and timing, further suggesting the Chongjin vessel is also a naval project.

Joost Oliemans, an expert on the DPRK military, agreed that it looks like a warship and resembles the Nampho project. 

“You can see the bow turret emplacement cutout as well as the section for the vertical launch system (VLS)” both at the bow and stern, he told NK Pro.

Planet Labs satellite imagery shows that assembly of large red colored hull sections started in both locations last May, and both involved building a protective shelter later in the construction process.

In Nampho, a shelter measuring around 170 by 30 meters (558 by 98 feet) started to go up around August, first covered in netting and later in November a permanent roof was installed. 

The Chongjin Shipyard site also features a temporary shelter measuring around 150 by 22 meters (492 by 72 feet), similarly covered in netting, but a permanent structure had not been installed yet as of the latest high-resolution Skysat imagery taken on Feb. 13.

NK Insight additionally reported that an “anti-pollution fence” was installed in the water at the Chongjin Shipyard adjacent to the ship construction location.

State TV revealed four photos of the new destroyer under construction at Nampho at the end of December, showing leader Kim Jong Un inspecting it on multiple occasions, both when it was surrounded by the netting shelter and later the permanent structure.

State media reported on Kim visiting the Nampho Dockyard twice last year, in February and September, but he has not publicly visited the Chongjin Shipyard since July 2018.

Overall, Planet Labs imagery shows slow renovation construction around the Chongjin Shipyard complex since 2019, with work accelerating last year on new buildings near the entrance and the reroofing of several large production or assembly halls next to the new ship construction location.

North Korea has conducted simultaneous construction of new warships on both coasts before, likely to avoid sailing its naval vessels around South Korea to move from one coast to the other.

The most recent example involved building 77-meter (252-foot) corvettes, unofficially referred to as Amnok- and Tuman-class vessels, at the Nampho Dockyard and on the east coast at the Rajin Shipyard, north of Chongjin. The Korean People’s Army (KPA) navy finally deployed some of these ships in the last few years.

But the pace of construction on the two new ships at Nampho and Chongjin is much faster than the Amnok and Tuman-class corvettes, which took over a decade to build and not all of them — one of each class on both coasts — appear to have been properly deployed.

It’s not yet clear what type of weaponry Pyongyang seeks to equip the larger new destroyers with, but analysts have suggested it could carry nuclear-armed cruise missiles, reportedly like the corvettes. 

North Korea has also declared its intention to threaten U.S. and South Korean reconnaissance flights over international waters off the east and west coasts by “constantly deploying a ship loaded with new-type anti-aircraft missiles” in the future.

Meanwhile, construction still has not resumed on a large new naval base down the east coast near Munchon that is meant to host new warships and submarines, after Kim visited last September and ordered the revival of the abandoned project.

Edited by Alannah Hill