ASC has been awarded a contract extension to provide maintenance on the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) Collins-class submarine fleet.
The company will continue to perform all maintenance work at its headquarters in Osborne, Adelaide, South Australia, and Henderson, Western Australia.
ASC interim chief executive officer Stuart Whiley said: "This new contract recognises the significant improvement in performance and availability of the submarine fleet.
"ASC already performs significant submarine maintenance work and inventory management at its facilities at Henderson in Western Australia, to complement its maintenance, engineering and logistics capabilities in South Australia.
"ASC plans to build on its capability in Western Australia to perform all mid-cycle and intermediate maintenance work, enabling the focus in South Australia to be on the new two-year full cycle docking (FCD)."
The new phase of the in-service support contract (ISSC) represents ASC’s significant work undertaken to improve availability and reliability of the fleet, and its submarine enterprise partners, including the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) and RAN.
The new support initiatives that have been included are the introduction of a circumferential hull, cut for easy access to the submarine, and efficient removal of the diesel engines.
Also included are the construction of a new maintenance support tower at ASC’s South Australian facility, house key resources forfacilities around the boat, remediation of the supply chain, and the establishment of a rotable pool of spare parts.
The navy currently operates a fleet of six 78m-long Australian Submarine Corporation-built Collins-class submarines, which are designed to carry up to 22 missiles and torpedoes, as well as six 533mm forward-torpedo tubes with air-turbine pump discharge.
Image: RAN’s Collins-class submarine, HMAS Farncomb. Photo: © 2014 ASC Pty Ltd.
