The company was established on 1st January 1937 by the so called C.U.F. Group when it took over the Rocha Shiprepair Yard concession situated on the North bank of the Tagus estuary at Lisbon. In September 1961 the company adopted the name Lisnave - Estaleiros Navais de Lisboa when the company expanded on the South bank of the Tagus where a new yard - Margueira, was built, with facilities to accommodate the largest vessels being built . In 1973 Setenave (Estaleiros Navais de Setúbal) was built at Mitrena in Setúbal to cope with increased demand, both for ship repairing and shipbuilding. In mid 1997 a restructuring plan was implemented to meet the forecast ship repair and conversion needs in the next century. This restructuring was completed at the end of 2000, following the general upgrading of the existing yard and the construction of 3 additional Panamax size Drydocks. All activities are now concentrated in Mitrena.more

Located in the southern side of the country, Navantia’s Bay of Cadiz facility is the largest owned by the company (over a million and a half square meters). In this area, Navantia has one of the largest dry-docks in the world with a capacity to build vessels up to 500 meters long and 100 m wide, along with the two largest gantry cranes in Spain. Navantia’s Bay of Cadiz centers are specialized in the construction of ocean-going patrol vessels, large military vessels, fast patrol vessels and special vessels, such as the Coastal Survey Vessels, Oceanic Survey Patrol Vessels, Maritime Action Ships, Combat Support Vessels, etc.n the Bay, which is an obligatory port of pass for maritime traffic between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Cadiz-San Fernando Overhaul is equipped with the infrastructure and equipment required to meet any need in the field of overhauls and transformations. The Bay of Cadiz is also home to Navantia’s state-of-the-art system factory (Sistemas), which develops combat systems, weapons, ship control and maritime security systems and other civil application products.more