Austal wins $100m joint contract

Ship builder Austal has won a joint contract of up to $100 million with General Dynamics for provision of modernisation services to the US Navy’s Freedom and Independence class littoral combat ships.

The contract is for provision of engineering, planning, configuration, material and logistics support for maintenance and modernisation of the LCS vessels, through General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works.

Chief executive officer Andrew Bellamy said the contract was great news for Austal.

“It is strategically important to the further growth of our post-delivery service and support business,’’ he said.

“We can now look forward to finalising the contract details with General Dynamics.”

Austal said it would update the market when details were formalised.

It comes less than a week after the company sold a 102-metre trimaran to Condor Ferries for $61.5 million.

The year so far has been a strong one for Austal.

The company won a $30 million catamaran contract in April to follow on from a major US Navy contract in March.

The US contract raised its order book to a record $3.3 billion, the company said.

Austal was up 1.7 per cent to $1.18 at the time of writing.