Two Vancouver shipbuilders are involved in multi-million dollar contracts to design new science vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard.
STX Canada Marine Inc. has been awarded a $2.48 million contract to design a 90-metre offshore ocean research vessel, while Robert Allan Ltd. is one of two companies designing three 60- to 65-metre fisheries research vessels in a $2.5 million contract.
The new vessels will replace existing vessels whose life spans are nearing an end.
Once the vessels’ blueprints are completed, they will be handed over to shipbuilders who have yet to be selected in the federal government’s National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS).
North Vancouver’s Washington Marine Group is reportedly in the running to be named as a long-term shipbuilder under that multi-billion-dollar strategy.
For Dave McMillan, president of STX, it’s good to see Canadian shipbuilders designing and building Canadian ships.
“There haven’t been that many Canadian projects,” he said. “There’s a lot of expertise in this country that is not recognized and we’re just pleased to get our foot in the door [with government].”
The contract STX received was originally awarded to a Norwegian firm a couple years ago, despite protests the project was largely sole-sourced, with only a token effort by government to reach out to Canadian shipbuilders who met the contract’s requirements.
The government dropped the Norwegian firm not because of STX’s and other Canadian shipbuilders’ protests, but because of inadequacies in the preliminary design work.