This week Austal USA said it is starting to design a major expansion of its steel manufacturing capacity at its Mobile, Ala., shipyard, with construction expected to start this summer.
The expanded facilities will be located to the south of its current waterfront facility and includes a new assembly building with 192,000 square feet of covered manufacturing space, waterfront improvements, and a new Pearlson Shiplift-designed shiplift system.
The current design work “involves the configuration of the building and shiplift,” Larry Ryder, Austal USA Vice President of Business Development and External Affairs, told Defense Daily.
The shiplift will be about 450 feet by 125 feet and capable of lifting and launching vessels upwards of 18,000 long tons.
Austal noted this means it will be able to dock and launch Constellation-class frigates, TAGOS-25 class Ocean Surveillance Ships, Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ships, and the U.S. Coast Guard’s Heritage-class Offshore Patrol Cutters.
Ryder confirmed naming the frigate, the only listed ship not built at the Mobile facility, means the company intends to compete as a second yard to build and maintain the frigate, if the Navy goes that route.
“Austal USA is tracking the Navy’s plans for a potential frigate follow yard competition and we intend to compete in that. We are also looking to bring repair work to the Gulf Coast,” Ryder told Defense Daily.
The Navy is open to eventually adding a second shipyard to build frigates at a faster rate, but only after the initial boats are finished. The Navy’s contract with frigate builder Fincantieri Marinette Marine includes the option to order a Technical Data package, allowing multi-yard production, before ending work on the 10th vessel.
Without a second shipyard, the Navy plans to buy frigates in a sawtooth pattern, alternating between buying one and two ships per year.
Austal’s announcement came with graphic renderings of the shiplift platform holding a Constellation-class frigate.
The company said when this latest facility expansion is finished the entire Mobile shipyard will ultimately have “117,000 square foot steel panel line, two module manufacturing facilities totaling over one million square feet of covered manufacturing space optimized for serial production, and seven assembly bays providing over 400,000 square feet of indoor erection space.”
Austal underscored the new assembly building will include three bays and allow it to not only work on recently awarded steel ship contracts, but “provide the flexibility to manufacture modules for submarine and other surface ship programs.”
In December 2022, Austal USA announced it started production on modules supporting submarine construction led by General Dynamics’ Electric Boat’s [GD] as part of a strategic partnership the Navy supports, to improve submarine construction rates amid stressors on the industrial base (Defense Daily, Dec. 12, 2022).
That work specifically covers building and outfitting the Command and Control Systems Modules (CCSM) and Electronic Deck Modules (EDM) for Virginia-class attack submarines and Columbia-class nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines.
At the time, Austal said it planned to continue ramping up fabrication and outfitting of CCSMs and EDMs across the submarine classes, while full fabrication is expected to start in 2026.
“With the steel panel line in full production our expansion focus has shifted to the erection and launch facilities required to support our growing backlog,” Austal USA Acting President Michelle Kruger, said in a statement Tuesday.
Ryder also said the extra assembly bays will give the company a place to erect modules, more production space in the module manufacturing facility and particularly build bigger steel modules without weight limitations of their other assembly bays.
“The additional assembly bays give us additional space to erect modules as they are completed in the module manufacturing facility. It also allows us to build bigger steel modules since the new building will be reached by roads with higher weight rating than our current assembly bays,” he said.
Mobile’s facility contains 180 acres and Austal said once this newest project is completed it will have over 1.5 million square feet total of indoor manufacturing space.
The company first opened its Mobile steel facility in April 2022, expanding beyond the aluminum production line it used on the Independence-variant LCS. Austal broke ground on the steel facility in March 2021 (Defense Daily, April 15, 2022).
The first steel ships the shipyard is building are the Navajo-class towing, salvage and rescue ship and it is the second yard working on the next-generation LCU-1700 landing craft.
Ryder also said the Mobile expansion will allow them to execute on the current work backlog as well as projected future contracts, along with the workforce needed for that.
“We’re looking to hire 1,200 people over the next 18 months to support our current and projected workload,” he said.