Kongsberg Defence Australia took a further step in strengthening its partnership with the Commonwealth yesterday, when its new facility at Mawson Lakes in South Australia was opened by Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy.
Minister Conroy ceremonially cut the ribbon on the $25 million new facility - which will be used to support Kongsberg’s missile programs in Australia - alongside Norwegian Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram.
At the event, Minister Conroy also formally announced that Australia will acquire Kongsberg’s Joint Strike Missile (JSM) for the Royal Australian Air Force’s F-35A Joint Strike Fighters under a $142 million accelerated acquisition plan which will see the first missiles arrive in 2025. The announcement accelerates the JSM acquisition by two years and although the initial stock will come from Norway, the missiles will eventually be manufactured in the recently-announced facility at Newcastle Airport being jointly established by the Commonwealth and Kongsberg Defence Australia.
“We are proud to be here today to open this facility that will employ tens of skilled workers making a contribution to the Naval Strike Missile,” Conroy said.
The facility will support Kongsberg’s National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) being delivered with Raytheon Australia under Land 19/7B and production of launchers for its Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) now being fitted to the Navy’s surface combatants under Project Sea 1300.
“Kongsberg Defence Australia has already done brilliant work on the NASAMS missile defence system and they are now critical to our future, in terms of guided weapons,” Conroy added.
"Only last month I announced an $850 million contract with Kongsberg Defence Australia to manufacture Naval Strike Missiles and Joint Strike Missiles at a facility in Newcastle Airport – the first facility outside Norway to produce the most advanced strike missiles in the world – creating 500 jobs.”
A range of local companies which contribute to Kongsberg’s global supply chain were represented at the event, including Daronmont Technologies, Redarc Defence & Space, Aerobond, Eylex Cable Systems, Marand, APT Advanced Manufacturing, Stärke, Axiom Precision Manufacturing, and Stahl Metall Engineering.
“Kongsberg Defence Australia’s has a really aggressive involvement with Australian suppliers in their global supply chains – not just for products made here in Australia, but for their global products,” Conroy said. “We met vendors that are supplying parts of systems to Poland, to the US (and) back in fact into Norway itself – so this is a great example of Australian industry working with a global prime to help defend multiple nations around the world.”
Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace President Eirik Lie and Kongsberg Defence Australia told ADM that the new Mawson Lakes facility has been funded by the company as part of its growing investment in Australia
“This facility has been paid for by Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace in Norway, so it’s an investment for us, to build up our capacity in Australia,” he said.
“We have quite a few Australian suppliers now, supporting us here in Australia and also on the export market – which Kongsberg needs, because of the demand, and we also want redundancy in our supply chain.
“So, going forward I would imagine that we will have more suppliers here in Australia and when we present our figures to the market, you’ll see that our order backlog is extremely high, so the growth is there and we definitely need to ramp up our capacity.”
In the August NSM/JSM production announcement, Kongsberg Defence Australia was also revealed as the third strategic partner (behind Lockheed Martin Australia and Raytheon Australia) in the Commonwealth’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) enterprise.
“As we expand GWEO it’s natural that we align full position partnerships with companies that supply significant parts of our inventory, and those three companies clearly at the moment are Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Kongsberg and their commitment to a missile factory is one part of that partnership,” Minister Conroy explained yesterday.
“It was a no-brainer to acquire these (NSM and JSM) weapons and I want to pay tribute to Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace and the Norwegian Government about how forward-leaning they are in their industrial presence in this country; in co-investing with Australia to build the only missile factory outside Norway that can produce these missiles, and to include Australian companies in their supply chains.
“I think it’s a great example that I would like the rest of the defence industry to emulate – other companies are doing great work, but Kongsberg is really up there and I think it’s a really good example for other players.”