Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] on Friday said it has teamed with the energy company Kinder Morgan Energy Partners [KMP] to explore redevelopment opportunities for HII’s Avondale shipyard in Louisiana, which is on a path to eventually be closed down once work is completed on a Navy ship program.
HII’s effort with Kinder Morgan is another attempt by the shipbuilder to find suitable alternatives to keeping Avondale open in some capacity ever since it announced in July 2010 that it planned to close the shipyard. HII said that once its study of potential best uses is complete and an economically viable path forward for the facility is determined, the two companies may form a joint venture to repurpose Avondale.
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, one of four publicly traded companies within the larger Kinder Morgan [KMI] umbrella, operates more than 54,000 miles of pipelines that transport oil and gas and provides energy storage facilities. Avondale is located along the Mississippi River and has access to major markets by truck, rail and sea, HII said.
HII is currently working on units for the Navy’s LPD-27 amphibious transport dock ship at Avondale and it plans to keep open an engineering facility and maintain engineering labor in support of ships being built at its Ingalls Shipbuilding division in Mississippi, a company spokeswoman told Defense Daily. She added that HII is doing what it takes to ensure that Avondale is “well maintained for potential redeployment.”