Patrick Durrant | Sydney
The five contenders for the Sea 3036 Pacific Patrol Boat Replacement (PPB-R) program have been reduced to just two after three were notified they would not progress to the next stage of the tender process.
The two remaining contenders are the Teekay Shipping/Damen/Norship/BSE Maritime Solutions team based in Cairns and the WA-based Austal/Babcock team.
ADM understands that the following three contenders have been informed they would not be invited to participate in the next stage of the tender evaluation process:
- Adelaide Ship Construction International (ASCI) together with KBR and Singapore Technologies Marine, based in Port Adelaide;
- Forgacs/Thales Australia from NSW;
- Tasmanian consortium TasPac Maritime Group including Incat, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems Australia, Haywards and UGL.
The program involves the acquisition and support of up to 21 new vessels to replace the fleet of Pacific-class patrol boats gifted to 12 Pacific Island nations between 1987 and 1997.
The Request For Tender (RFT) for the $594 million project was announced in March this year, and now the two remaining contenders will proceed and participate in the Offer Definition and Improvement Activity (ODIA).
Scott Morrison PPB-R bid principal for Teekay Shipping said the ODIA process is due for completion on 22 January 2016.
“That’s a process that involves answering a series of questions requiring detailed responses, as well as participating in a number of workshops with the Commonwealth project management team,” Morrison told ADM.
Morrison would not speculate as to why the three other tenders had been rejected but said his consortium was very thankful for the opportunity to proceed to the next stage.
“Fundamentally, Damen’s design of the vessel we’ve proposed is a state-of-the-art vessel. We’ve moved into the next generation,” he said.
Morrison said the existing support for the Pacific Patrol boats is based in and around Cairns.
“Cairns is still the most suited place both geographically, and with regard to the resources required for this type of project,” he said.
“The three factors that we see as our strength are the location in Far North Queensland, the modern design and the 100 per cent through life support we can provide.”
Austal was approached for comment but would only confirm that they have submitted a tender for the program.
Forgacs announced this week that it had entered into an agreement with Perth based Civmec to sell its defence engineering business in Newcastle.