RFA contract extension for Cammell Laird

The RFA supplies fuel, munitions, food and other ship’s stores to the Royal Navy fleet while on operations at sea. There are 13 vessels from replenishment tankers and stores vessels through to platforms providing specialist capabilities such as aircraft training and primary casualty reception, a forward repair ship and landing ships. The nine ships covered by the Cammell Laird contract are RFA Orangeleaf, RFA Black Rover, RFA Gold Rover, RFA Diligence, RFA Wave Knight, RFA Fort Austin, RFA Fort Rosalie, RFA Wave Ruler and RFA Fort Victoria.

Cammell Laird is located on Merseyside on the West Coast of England, and operates a site of nearly 500,000m² with four dry docks, modular construction hall and covered workshops. It specialises in military ship refit, commercial ship repair, upgrade and conversion and heavy fabrication and engineering. It has recently re-entered the shipbuilding market with two passenger ferries under construction.

Cammell Laird managing director Linton Roberts said the company is “absolutely delighted” to see the contract extended. “A huge amount of effort, energy and dedication has gone into delivering the highest quality maintenance service on RFA vessels since 2008,” he said. “So we are very pleased to see the work recognised and our contract extended following a ‘value for money’ review by the Ministry of Defence.

“We have been working closely with the MoD on this contract for nearly five years and have built a very strong partnership. There is greater continuity of support and engineering, with the ships maintenance here in the UK and around the world now being carried out by the same teams. This results in more preparation time, more in depth understanding and knowledge of the vessels, better specifications, reduced costs, increased vessel availability and a focus on continuous improvement and innovation.

“2012 alone has seen five major refits conducted at our Birkenhead yard and numerous maintenance periods supported around the world – in places as diverse as the Bahamas, the Falklands, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. The contract has seen Cammell Laird provide truly ‘global reach’ support over the past 4 years, with maintenance to RFA vessels carried out on every major continent.”

Cammell Laird chief executive officer John Syvret CBE said: “Based upon the strong foundations we have jointly laid, we look forward to working in partnership with the MOD for another five years to further improve value for money and levels of vessel availability.”

Head of commercially supported shipping for defence, equipment and support, Commodore (RFA) David Preston said: “These contracts represent the best value for money for Defence and each of the companies has a proven track record in supporting the Royal Fleet Auxiliary on a worldwide basis – this ability to support the Navy wherever they are deployed is critical to UK Defence.”