H&B Defence, a joint venture between HII and Babcock, has secured its first contract aimed at enhancing supply chain capabilities for the global AUKUS enterprise, according to a press release.
The contract, awarded under the Australian Submarine Supplier Qualification Pilot Program, marks a significant step in strengthening the supply chain for the AUKUS trilateral security partnership. The joint venture will oversee a nationwide qualification process over the next two years to identify Australian suppliers capable of supporting the Virginia-class submarine and aircraft carrier build programmes at Newport News Shipbuilding in the United States.
H&B Defence will assess supplier competency across seven critical Work Packages necessary to deliver the first three nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS. These categories include Castings and Forgings, Precision Machining, Air and Gas Flasks, Fabricated Parts, Composites and Glass Reinforced Plastic, Joinery, and Circuit Cards. The process of shortlisting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will begin this month, followed by technical assessments and validations.
Michael Lempke, H&B Defence Board Chairman and HII Australia President, highlighted the joint venture’s unique capability to deliver on this ambitious programme. “H&B Defence brings together the only two organisations worldwide with comprehensive expertise in every aspect of nuclear-powered submarine activities, and as such, is perfectly placed to support the acceleration and development of critical sovereign capability for the once-in-a-generation AUKUS submarine program,” he said.
The joint venture will also play a pivotal role in supporting Australia’s transition to sovereign nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS Pillar 1. This includes workforce skills development, nuclear infrastructure design and build, submarine defueling and decommissioning, nuclear waste management, and long-term sustainment planning.
Andrew Cridland, Babcock Australasia CEO and H&B Defence Non-Executive Director, noted the importance of the contract, stating, “Securing this contract signals the beginning of a long-term commitment and willingness to deliver innovative, reliable solutions in support of Australia’s national security and that of our allies.” He added, “We’re proud to partner with HII and the Commonwealth of Australia to strengthen supply chain capabilities, ensuring seamless operations and long-term benefits for all members of the AUKUS alliance.”
The contract is valued at A$9.6 million.
It was made to win this contract, Babcock and HII made this joint venture so there was no chance of either of them losing.
Electric boat and BAE were both bidders as well.
It is such a small contract I almost wonder why they wanted it?
PQQ is a nightmare. Make it too hard and no SME’s have the resources to get onto the system. Make it too easy and you are blamed for every foul up.
I could think of a few good reasons starting with Australian PR at a time when some Australians are getting jittery about the whole project and want alternatives. So getting Australian SME’s involved and integrated into the supply chain is a positive way of locking in public opinion when all they are seeing at present are Billions of AU$ being invested in the US and U.K DNE / supply chains.
It’s maybe also a prudent move by HII to see what Australian industry has to offer as the US supply chain isn’t exactly impressing anyone at present and Australia does have some very interesting latent capabilities. It isn’t like there isn’t a long standing precedent for U.K. / US sourcing certain parts from each other going back over 60 years.
The bit I found very interesting is it’s the first mention of Australia going to have to deal with its “Elephant in the Car Park” problem, decommissioning and waste management. At present they only have one tiny test Reactor at Lucas heights, waste is reprocessed by U.K and then shipped back to Lucas heights for temporary storage. They have never got round to setting up long term storage and this may just nudge them to do so, and that could entice them to go for Civilian reactors as well.
Australia is a BIG country. They have a lot of deep mining, more than enough to build a waste repository. In fact I can see the UK on the future requesting to ship it’s waste there for disposal.
The UK government keep fudging the issue of waste repository even though one is clearly required.
Either get one built or pay another country to bury the waste for a thousand years.
Unfortunately given the fact that we irradiated a large bit of Australia they have a law that prohibits that idea (can’t blame them). Secondly as we have been accumulating it since the 1940’s we have rather a lot of it.
At the moment we are very close to agreeing to start building a purpose built deep repository up in Cumbria, the Fins are advising on how to build it as they have the best one around at Onkalo. If you Google it you will be impressed and not stupid money.
Cheers ABCRodney- I was aware and had read about the Finnish deep repository- agree it seems to have been a well run programme and delivered (at reasonable cost) a solution to their nuclear waste requirements.
Would the UK require something significantly larger in scale?
The Finnish Onkalo waste repository programme reportedly cost a reported 5 Billion Euro’s for the entire 5 phases of the programme- pretty good value to lock away for 100,000 years all your accumulated nuclear waste.
Sorry Rodders, but, in Council last year,our board representative said that project was 25 years away and only if Millom, Cumberland Councils agreed to it.
Which at present, in unlikely.
Do you think the HB profit margins will be pencil thin?
What I don’t understand about Aukus is why the Aussies don’t just purchase more than 3 Virginia class subs from the USA and just have Virginia class?
That way UK can stay with SSNr and we don’t have to worry about making a sub that fits the Aussie requirements.
Whatever happens the RN has to end up with 12 or more attack submarines, not the penny pockets miserly 6 possibly 7 eventually, as is current.
My presumption is firstly the US Congress weren’t exactly happy about selling them 3 when they can’t make enough for themselves but longer term Australia with all its immense outlay is desperate to build its own submarines and gain physical benefits from the expenditure, very unlikely the US was willing to let them do that with their designs. This way they can be selective about what they pass on.
The US can’t meet their own requirements due to the same issue as we have had, they ran their industry into the ground post Cold War by not ordering new boats. TBH I was amazed they agreed to it in the first place but Trump may even back out of these 3, so watch that space.
As for making an SSN that allows the RAN to fit their preferred USN sourced weapons and sensors, a modular design with inbuilt flexibility means it just isn’t an issue. T26 was designed for that hence the RCN & RAN versions and so will SSN(A) but more so.
The best way to actually get more RN SSNs is to maximise the production run, oa 15 or 16 is optimum as that lowers the cost per hull. You build at a steady but efficient Drumbeat of 12 / 15 months overall and the final assembly can be here or in Australia or both. The final assembly doesn’t really matter as the real cost savings are on the long lead items in the DNE and supply chains.
Oh and my money is on 10 SSN(A) for the RN as per 1SL statement in 2023.
FYI SSN(R) is now known as SSN(A) and has been for about 18 months.
I don’t think Trump would back out of the selling them the Virginias bit. More likely back out at the helping them build their own Sub building industry bit.