Dive Brief:
- Shipmaker Austal USA broke ground on a $288 million final assembly facility on July 9, expanding its site in Mobile, Alabama, according an announcement from to parent company Austal.
- The building will span over 192,000 square feet and provide an assembly bay that will allow the company to produce large steel modules for U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships, according to the company release.
- The facility is expected to create 1,032 jobs over the next four years, according to a state release. Construction and operations are anticipated to begin in summer 2026.
Dive Insight:
The new project is part of Austal U.S. subsidiary’s expansion plans, which it initiated in March 2021, the Australia-based company said in the release.
The new assembly facility is part of an expansion that includes a waterfront support area and a system to safely lift and launch completed ships. The shiplift system will also bring vessels back to the facility’s land-side for repair and maintenance.
Once construction is complete, the facility will total over 1.5 million square feet of indoor manufacturing space, according to the release. The site will include a 117,000-square-foot steel panel, two module manufacturing facilities covering over 1 million square feet and seven assembly bays providing over 400,000 square feet of indoor shipbuilding space.
“Austal USA is poised for significant growth, and this infrastructure expansion plan reflects that,” Austal USA President Michelle Kruger said in a statement.
Austal’s investment expansion will support the Department of Defense’s National Defense Industrial Strategy, Kruger stated. The strategy focuses on building resilient supply chains to securely produce systems and equipment such as ships and obtain them at speed, scale and low cost. It also focuses on building an industrial workforce to provide the service DOD needs.
The U.S. Navy has been modifying its contract with Austal USA over the past year, which could potentially accumulate up to $3.2 billion, according to the parent company's May 31 press release.
The military branch initially awarded the company a $113.9 million contract to design and build up to seven ocean surveillance ships, used to detect and track submarines in war. The Navy increased the funds to $516 million in May.
The DOD’s Office of Industrial Base Policy also awarded Austal USA and its subsidiary, Austal USA Advanced Technologies, a $20 million contract to boost the U.S. Navy shipbuilding industrial base as well as add advanced manufacturing capabilities to Austal’s Mobile shipyard.
