NEWPORT NEWS — Huntington Ingalls Industries, the largest military shipbuilding company in the United States, received a $165.5 million contract from the Navy this week.
The shipbuilding company won the contract as part of the Navy’s LX(R) Replacement Program, that started in 2016. The goal: To replace the retiring LSD 41/49 Class ships, according to a Navy pre-solicitation announcement.
The money will be used for long-lead time materials and major equipment for main engines, diesel generators, deck equipment, shafting, propellers, values and other systems regarding the new amphibious warfare ship, the LPD-30. The LPD-30 will be the first ship in the Flight II San Antonio-class and will be worked on in Newport News Shipbuilding’s sister company, Ingalls Shipbuilding, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, according to a news release from the Navy.
“This is a significant milestone as we embark toward a new flight of LPDs”, said Brian Cuccias, president of Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding. “The Flight II LPDs will be highly capable ships meeting the requirements and needs for our Navy-Marines Corps team.”
Typically, ships in the San Antonio-class are 684-foot-long, 105-foot-wide, holds anywhere from 650-800 crew members and weighs around 25,000 tons. The new LPD-30 will also have improved troop armory and weapons storage. Construction of the new vessel is scheduled for some time in 2020, according to a Huntington Ingalls news release.
This announcement comes days after Huntington Ingalls received a $187.5 million advance planning contract, also with the Navy, to renovate the entire USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and to refuel the ship’s nuclear reactors.
The money awarded to the shipbuilding company is the base value and will initially fund the project for one year. It will be used for the engineering, design, material procurement and fabrication, documentation, resource forecasting and pre-overhaul inspections. Newport News Shipbuilding will be working on the vessel.
Aircraft carriers have a 50-year lifespan and mid-way through the ship’s life, it goes through a process known as Refueling and Complex Overhaul. This process is a comprehensive overall of the entire aircraft carrier, which means the USS John C. Stennis will be essentially gutted, according to the Navy.
The aircraft carrier will be the seventh Nimitz-class carrier to go through this process. It was christened in 1993, sent to the Navy in 1995, according to a Newport News Shipbuilding news release.
“The planning stage is critically important to the overall success of an engineering and construction project of this magnitude,” said Chris Miner, vice president, in-service aircraft carrier programs at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding division. “This contract allows us to prepare for each step in the overhaul process from preparing for the ship’s arrival at Newport News to its re-delivery back to the Navy.”
The USS John C. Stennis project starts in January 2021 and will take about four years to complete. Planning is schedule to begin this month.
Money to employees
Earlier this year, because of changes in tax reform, Huntington Ingalls was able to contribute $200 million toward its Newport News Shipbuilding employees’ pension fund and plans to increase its workforce to around 25,000.
Huntington Ingalls also gave every employee an additional $500, around $350 each after taxes, said Fred Raymond, international vice president and chairman of United Steelworkers’ bargaining committee at Newport News. This includes all hourly and salary-based employees, except those signed up for the companies incentive plan.
As it stands, the National Association of Manufacturers says the industry currently employs approximately 40,000 people.
Duane Bourne, Huntington Ingalls spokesman for Newport News Shipbuilding, said they recently hired more than 2,000 “trade employees,” out of a planned 3,000 new hires for this year.