AUSTRALIA along with its purpose-built shipyard at Tomago on the Hunter River , just 160 kilometres to the north of Sydney . The 22.7-hectare site includes 535 metres of river frontage with two ship basins . It is hard to overstress the significance of this move , since it gives Civmec the capability to be involved in defence builds over the coming years .
The Australian government has just announced that it will spend $ 150 billion over the next decade to include a doubling of its submarine fleet to 24 , three additional destroyers , nine new frigates and twelve offshore patrol boats . This acquisition , added to Civmec ’ s own excellent reputation for making durable structures for longterm subsea performance , gives Civmec the opportunity to become deeply involved in the government programmes including submarines . A strong contender to design these vessels is Germany ’ s Thyssen Krupp , working with Siemens for their power plants . It has been suggested that Civmec would be favourite to build the pressure hulls .
“ We wanted to get into fabrication and precast on the east coast ,” says Tallon . “ There are so many opportunities for these activities particularly in NSW , so we are planning to create a facility that mirrors the Henderson site . It will be a major building block in our growth programme and will make up for the shortfall in mining and O & G contracts .”
Submarine hull section unveiled at Civmec Henderson
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