The US Navy has awarded contracts worth a total of more than $7 billion to build 20 of its new Littoral Combat Ships to Lockheed Martin and Austal USA.
The Defense Department has awarded Lockheed Martin a $491.6 million deal to construct one ship. If options for nine additional ships are exercised, the award total amounts to $4.57 billion.
Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed will partner with Marinette Marine Corp. to build the ship at its Marinette, Wisconsin plant, which is expected to grow from its current 800 workers to 1,800 within five years, due to the contract.
Austal received a $465.5 million deal for one ship with a slightly different design. The total award amounts to $4.39 billion if options for nine other ships are exercised.
Austal is expected to double the size of its shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, and add about 1,800 jobs to support the project. Work will also be performed in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, as well as other locations.
One ship each from Lockheed and Austal will be delivered in fiscal 2010 ending September 30. The nine additional ships will be built by each company by 2015.
Lockheed will build a single-hull Littoral Combat Ship, while Austal will provide a trimaran—three hulls side by side. Both versions will weigh around 3,000 tonnes, have a top speed of 40 knots and carry a helicopter.
Commenting on the announcement, Lockheed Martin chairman and CEO Bob Stevens said: “The Lockheed Martin team’s Littoral Combat Ship is designed to confront rapidly changing global threats while providing a cost-effective solution in an era of tight budgets.
“This team’s strong performance will enable the Navy to deploy a class of affordable, multi-mission combatants to address the nation's needs for decades to come.”
Austal Limited’s chairman John Rothwell said: “This contract has firmly established Austal as an international defence shipbuilder, is a strong vote of confidence in Austal’s aluminium trimaran LCS design, and also reflects the strength and capability of our USA operations and highly-skilled workforce.”
Lockheed employs about 133,000 people worldwide and posted sales in 2009 of $44 billion.
