Halifax loses out on navy contract

A consortium trying to land a large shipbuilding contract in Halifax, Canada, is out of the running, a spokeswoman for one of the companies in the syndicate said. Irving official Mary Keith said the consortium learned last week that its proposal for the contract for Canadian navy ships was knocked out of the competition.

“We were competing against some very capable Canadian companies and we look forward to an explanation so that we can understand why it was that we weren?t selected.” Keith said officials from Ottawa will meet with consortium representatives next month to provide reasons for their decision. Requests for proposals for replacements of the navy?s aging fleet replenishment ships hit the street on a $2.1-billion joint support ship program and an additional $800-million contract to maintain the three 28,000-tonne vessels for two decades.

Besides refueling and re-supplying warships at sea, the new ships will have as much as 1,500 metres of space to haul armoured vehicles and trucks around the world. They will also have hangar space for as many as four helicopters and the ability to carry a small force of about 120 troops. The ships will be built to navigate in up to 0.7 metres of first-year Arctic ice and able to function as floating headquarters or hospitals for army units.

Keith said the consortium won?t be proceeding to the “project definition” phase, a 14-month period that would have employed about 30 engineers. She said the $1.5-billion construction phase would have employed about 500 people for eight years.

Teams led by Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems Canada Inc. and SNC-Lavalin ProFac Inc. are still in the contest to build the joint support ships. The former plans to build them in Newfoundland and Labrador. The latter intends to construct the vessels in Victoria, B.C.

The military had always planned to narrow the competition to two syndicates. Each of the two selected teams will get about $12 million to come up with a design for the new ships. The successful bidder is to be announced in 2008, with the first ship delivered to the navy four years later.