Post by ferryfast admin on Dec 21, 2007 17:43:26 GMT -5
New Austal facility gets $33M boost from Navy
Posted by KAIJA WILKINSON
Mobile Press~Register
www.al.com/
December 21, 2007 6:41 AM
The U.S. Navy plans to contribute up to $33 million to an Austal USA modular shipbuilding facility whose price tag could reach $200 million, Austal Ltd. said in a Thursday news release issued in Australia.
Austal said the money would be paid in a series of reimbursements as it reaches specific construction milestones on its planned 700,000-square-foot manufacturing facility just southeast of its existing Mobile River shipyard.
A Navy spokeswoman said Thursday that she could not comment on the reported agreement. The Navy earlier this year said it would make available $140 million for improvements to Gulf Coast shipyards, money designed to boost recovery from 2005's Hurricane Katrina.
Austal USA has for three years been adding employees and facilities in Mobile, largely on the promise of building a new breed of warship for the Navy. In 2004, Austal received $10 million from state and local governments to expand its shipyard with the multibillion-dollar Littoral Combat Ship program in mind.
The modular facility had been a key part of the planned expansion because it would allow workers to build entire sections of a vessel before final assembly in a riverside shed.
"When complete, the ... facility will be capable of construction of six large aluminum vessels ... per year," Austal Ltd., the Australian parent of the Mobile shipbuilder, said in a Thursday statement.
The Navy had said it wanted up to 55 LCS, but cost overruns on the first two prototypes -- one built by a Lockheed Martin Corp. team in a Wisconsin shipyard and the second about 70 percent finished at Austal in Mobile -- has put the future of the program in doubt.
But Austal said last week that it would proceed with its expansion plans, with or without a Navy contract in hand.
Bob Browning, chief executive officer at Austal USA, has said that he expects construction to start in June and be complete about 12 months later. A second phase -- a "mirror image" of the first -- would complete the $200 million expansion by 2011.
Browning has said he and fellow Austal executives have "gone around the world, literally, looking at how modular manufacturing is done at a number of other shipyards."
Elements of those facilities were incorporated into a preliminary design that Austal presented to the Navy in May, he said. Plans were refined and the company made a second presentation in August, Browning said.
Browning said he believes the facility will draw business.
In addition to its hoped-for military work, Austal is building a second vessel for Hawaii Superferry Inc. and has been pounding the pavement trying to win work such as supply boats for the oil and gas industry.
In addition to the LCS program, Austal is also among five teams vying for the military's Joint High Speed Vessel program, which could eventually consist of at least eight ships -- five for the Army and three for the Navy and Marine Corps. Austal hopes to learn next month whether or not it will be awarded a $3 million preliminary design contract for the Joint High Speed Vessel. The first of the ships is projected to cost about $210 million, the Navy has said.
Austal's Mobile shipyard has about 1,170 employees, and Browning has said he foresees no job cuts in the immediate future. When fully staffed, the modular facility could mean another 1,200 jobs.