Also, a move to start early on double-hulled tankers could provide a mother lode of work at Avondale after Northrop Grumman leaves
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus will announce Friday that Northrop Grumman will be required to finish work on two LPD ships at Avondale Shipyard before it ceases operations there, and that he will act administratively to move the start of the Navy's program for building double-hulled oil tankers up from 2017 to 2014, providing a potential mother lode of work at Avondale after Northrop Grumman leaves, Sen. Mary Landrieu said today.
View full sizeThe Northrop Grumman shipyard in Avondale has been working on projects like the LPD for the Navy.Landrieu said Mabus told her of his plans in a conversation Thursday. Landrieu and other members of the Louisiana congressional delegation have been pressing Mabus and the Obama administration to find ways to keep Avondale from being shuttered after Northrop closes its shipbuilding operations there in 2013.
"This is very good news," said Landrieu, who had been pressing for the acceleration of the Navy's long-term plan to replaced its outdated fleet of oil tankers as a potential salvation for Avondale.
"It basically positions Avondale to be able to capture this work," she said.
Mabus also spoke with U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, Thursday, who was less specific about the details, but said "what the Navy and Secretary Mabus and the administration are trying to do is find every avenue that might be available to keep Avondale a fully functioning shipyard" while also exploring "alternative options for Avondale as a manufacturing complex."
On the question of completing the two LPD ships at Avondale, Northrop Grumman has insisted all along that it would complete the ships by 2013 at Avondale before it ceases operations there. But some among the Avondale workforce have remained nervous that if the job is not done by 2013, it would be finished instead at the company's Ingalls yard in Pascagoula, Miss. Whether real or imagined, the secretary's intent to make that commitment even more explicit may ease those concerns.