The USD 7 million acquisition of the former FBMA Marine shipyard enables Austal to establish shipbuilding operations at the West Cebu Industrial Park at Balamban, in the province of Cebu. Austal will invest a further USD 5 million to enhance the shipyard’s existing facilities.
Austal plans to commence vessel construction in the Q1 of 2012, dependant on orders and expects to employ about 30 workers during the start up phase. Future workforce growth is expected in line with market demand and the site allows for efficient expansion of the facility when future operational and market conditions require.
Mr Andrew Bellamy CEO of Austal said that the acquisition of the former FBMA shipyard is an important milestone in Austal’s corporate strategy to meet the requirements of key commercial vessel markets by further regionalizing its shipbuilding operations.
Mr Bellamy said that our strategic review earlier this year found that there is strong demand in specific segments of the international commercial vessel market, such as fast crew transfer boats, work boats and 30 meter to 50 meter ferries.
He said that with our Australian and United States manufacturing operations increasingly defence focussed we identified the need to regionalize our manufacturing base in order to be successful in those commercial vessel markets.
Austal will primarily construct small and medium sized aluminum passenger ferries work boats and transfer vessels such as Austal’s Wind Express series of wind farm support vessels at the Philippines shipyard. The shipyard is purpose designed and built for building aluminum vessels of that size and type and will also have the skilled workforce and facilities to be able to undertake service and maintenance work. Austal is retaining its large commercial vessel manufacturing capability in Australia.
The Philippines shipyard has a history of aluminum vessel fabrication, and has previously delivered medium and high speed ferries, patrol boats and specialist work boats to operators based in Europe, Mexico, Australia and Asia. Austal’s significant intellectual property in the design and construction of commercial vessels will be utilized at its Philippines operations, which will help ensure that Austal’s quality and performance standards are maintained.
Mr Bellamy said that “Our planned infrastructure enhancements combined with the existing pool of skilled local tradespeople and ancillary industries will support the same safe, efficient high quality production we achieve in our other shipyards. Austal now has an order book of approximately USD 1.8 billion nearly all of it related to defence work and over 80% attributable to our US operations. The new shipyard in the Philippines provides the right foundation to grow that order book further through increased commercial vessel sales.”
(Sourced from www.maritime-executive.com)
