Post by ferryfast admin on Sept 28, 2007 11:50:54 GMT -5
STRATEGY ... Austal chairman John Rothwell with the
HMAS Launceston, a 56m border patrol boat,
which was commissioned on the weekend
~ Austal Photo
September 24, 2007 12:00am
By MICHAEL STEDMAN
The Mercury
www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,22467858-3462,00.html
SHIPBUILDER Austal will use the newly acquired Margate shipyard near Hobart to supply lucrative military contracts.
The West Australia-based company bought the operations of North West Bay Ships in February last year.
Austal chairman John Rothwell said the facility was ideally suited to building vessels similar to the 56m border patrol boat HMAS Launceston which was officially commissioned at Beauty Point at the weekend.
HMAS Launceston is twelfth of a soon-to-be-completed Australian Defence Force contract but Mr Rothwell said the international market for similar lightweight ships was huge.
"They are aluminium which is quite uncommon for warships and the opportunities for vessels of that kind worldwide, particularly in the non ship building nations such as the Middle East are very real," Mr Rothwell said.
"As we develop those opportunities there is no doubt at all that's what we will be building in Tasmania and growing that business."
Austal's military contracts are booming, with two revolutionary 127m warships currently being built at its yards in Alabama, USA.
Mr Rothwell said the size of the Margate yard meant it could be used to build anything up to 70m vessels.
An expansion of the current workforce and of the shipyards themselves is likely if the military contracts are found.
Employee numbers have already doubled from 40 to 80 since the yard was purchased.
"We started in the US with 40 people -- we have now got about 1100. In Tasmania the facilities could handle a couple of hundred people in their current form but we have quite a lot more land at the back of that so there is room for expansion."
Mr Rothwell said Tasmania was attractive because it was largely free of the competition for labour that had plagued the Western Australia operations.
But it would still be placed head-to-head with arch-rival Incat upriver, which has made no secret of its desire to expand its own workforce.
Tensions between the companies are tighter than ever because of legal action in which Incat has been accused of the theft of a confidential technical report on an Austal trimaran.
Mr Rothwell insisted the two companies could happily co-exist in Hobart.
Austal is currently building two 48m ships in Margate for New World Fast Ferries in Hong Kong.
An order for a larger vessel for a European client is expected to be announced soon.