Tenix may get state backing

The NSW State Government has pledged support for a multi-million-dollar upgrade of Williamstown’s Tenix shipyard provided the company wins the bid for the $6 billion air warfare destroyers contract.

The Melbourne-based shipbuilding company has lodged two separate bids for the project, one for Williamstown and one for a greenfields site in Adelaide’s Osborne. This will be the largest investment support package ever offered by the Government and is believed to be worth tens of millions of dollars.

The package includes doubling the size of the module hall where ship sections are built to 170 metres, a heavy-lift mobile crane, new fabrication and blast and paint facilities, and pier and dredging works to allow the assembly and launch of the destroyers. Depending on which design is chosen, a new floating dock will also be built. The package also includes the previously announced $22 million for a new shipbuilding and marine design college at Williamstown.

But the package is conditional on the plant winning the lead role in the contract to build three ships of up to 7500 tonnes each and which would be in service by 2013.

The Australian government is considering three foreign designs but has already made one key decision. Whichever vessel is chosen will be fitted with the AEGIS computer combat system, in use on US, Korean, Japanese, Spanish and Norwegian warships.

The Government next has to decide which of three competing shipbuilders ? ASC Shipbuilding, Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and Tenix Defence ? will build the vessels.