The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, today opened the new ASC shipbuilding facility at Osborne, South Australia.
ASC has invested $120 million in the state-of-the-art facility which will build hull blocks for Australia's new Air Warfare Destroyers.
The AWD is the most complex surface war ship ever built in this country and the $8 billion AWD program will deliver three ships to the Royal Australian Navy.
As the hub for the AWD Project, South Australia is getting access to the latest technologies, project management skills, design skills, contracting methodologies and production techniques.
The project has already created 650 jobs so far in South Australia alone. The ASC Shipyard is expected to employ a production workforce of about 500 during AWD construction. Contracts worth more than $40 million have already been let to local South Australian companies for the supply of equipment and services.
The collaboration between the State government and Defence Industry with the Federal government has been first class and has been critical to the success of the project so far.
HMAS Hobart is on schedule for delivery in December 2014. HMAS Brisbane is scheduled for delivery in March 2016 and HMAS Sydney in June 2017.
Construction of the facility commenced in February 2008 and was completed on schedule and within budget in November 2009. Over 50 companies provided equipment, materials and services during construction of the Production Outfit Hall, Combined Warehouse and Workshop Building, Administration Building and Wharf Support Building. At its peak, there were about 400 people working on the project.
The new ASC facility will construct nine hull blocks for each of the three AWDs.
Each block involves structural steel fabrication, painting and pre-outfitting with cabling, piping and equipment prior to transportation to the South Australian Government's Techport Common User Facility, adjacent to the ASC Shipyard, where the hull blocks will be welded together to form the complete ship.
ASC has purchased a crane with a 900-tonne lift capacity, the largest of its type in Australia and one of only 12 in the world of this size, to support the consolidation of blocks on the Common User Facility.