Bender wins tug contract

Bender Shipbuilding & Repair plans to hire 450 new workers, 200 of them in Mobile, to build three tug barges worth $232.5 million for Maritrans Inc.

Each articulated tug barge unit, a type of powerful 12,000-horsepower workboat, will be worth $77.5 million and able to carry 335,000 barrels of petroleum products. The tugs will be built at Bender’s shipyard on the Mobile River, and most of the barge construction will be subcontracted to Bender’s sister company, Tampa Bay Shipbuilding & Repair Co., according to Bender spokesman Frank Terrell Jr.

The first unit should be delivered in October 2007, and the others will follow in May and December 2008, according to Maritrans, a Tampa-based marine petroleum transportation company.

Bender has landed contracts of this size before, but this job is the company’s largest new construction project, Terrell said.