The shipyards of MDL were established in the 18th century. Ownership of the yards passed through entities including the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company and the British-India Steam Navigation Company. Eventually, 'Mazagon Dock Limited' was registered as a public company in 1934. The shipyard was nationalised in 1960 and is now a Public Sector Undertaking of the Government of India.

Commodore Rakesh Anand, IN(Retd) is the Chairman & Managing Director (CMD) of Mazgaon Docks Shipbuilders Limited. The retired Naval Officer took over his current position on 01 Jan 2011.[3] The activities at the yard are shipbuilding, submarine building, and fabrication of offshore structures. It has manufacturing facilities in Mumbai and Nhava.

The yard has the capability to build warships, submarines, and merchant ships up to 30,000 dead weight tons (DWT).[4] It can fabricate wellhead platforms, process and production platforms, and jack-up rigs for oil exploration.

MDL builds offshore oil drilling platforms. It operates facilities at Alcock, Mumbai and at Nhava Yard for construction of platforms with wellhead, water injection and production separator and glycol process capabilities, as well as jackup rigs, SBMs and other offshore structures.[5]

Repair and maintenance jobs on offshore rigs are undertaken at Alcock; jackets up to 80 m length and 2,200-tonne weight can be constructed. At Nhava, jackets up to 80 m length and 2,300-tonne weight, main decks up to 550 Tonne weight and helipads of 160-tonne weight can be constructed.

The yard builds specialist vessels able to clean oil spills and fight fires on offshore drilling platforms.

A welding training school develops and maintains welding techniques and procedures to acceptable standards and continuous update of welding techniques.