Austal says it has finalised plans to invest up to $30m to expand its commercial shipbuilding activities in Western Australia and Asia.
It first noted potential plans to expand its existing commercial shipbuilding facilities in the middle of last year following a significant increase to its order book.
Austal says this growth has continued with its current commercial vessel order book now extending out until early 2021.
The backlog includes five large vessels of over 80 metres in length which are collectively worth more than AUD 400m ($301m).
Austal says it has selected its existing Philippines and Henderson shipyards for the capacity expansion after conducting an extensive analysis.
Works have commenced and are expected to be completed during 2018 at Henderson and in early 2019 in the Philippines.
Austal chief executive David Singleton said the investment was primarily focused on the large ferry market where the company holds a competitive advantage.
“The capital investment in the commercial operation will increase Austal’s ability to secure and deliver large high speed aluminium vessel contracts in highly cost effective shipyards,” said Singleton.
“The demand outlook in the market for large high speed aluminium vessels underpins Austal’s decision to focus its investment in this sector.”
Some AUD 6m is to be spent upgrading the facilities at Henderson including enhanced launch facilities to support large vessel construction and infrastructure upgrades to support improved efficiency across the operations.
In the Philippines the fast ferry specialist will invest around $18m to more than double the capacity of its existing Philippines shipyard.
The upgrades to the facilities will include a new assembly hall that will measure 120 metres in length, 40 metres wide and 42 metres high.
This will enable the shipyard to assemble the largest commercial vessels, based on Austal’s existing order book and tender pipeline.
The facility upgrades will also include additional assembly bays, material storage and accommodation facilities to allow the workload at the site to increase to more than twice its historic peak.
Singleton said the new assembly hall would enable Austal to construct two large 100 metre long vessels in parallel in Henderson and the Philippines.
In addition, Austal has recently commenced a small commercial shipyard operation in Vietnam, located to the south of Ho Chi Minh City.
The location was selected to provide additional high quality aluminium construction support to Austal’s commercial operations both for modules for larger ships supporting Austal Philippines, and to build smaller high speed aluminium vessels.
