Norway Reaches Agreement With Yard on Boat Project

photo Matt

14 Sep 2011 By GERARD O'DWYER DefenseNews

HELSINKI - Norway has resumed its $352 million Missile Torpedo Boat (MTB) program after the Ministry of Defense (MoD) reached agreement with Umoe Mandal regarding late delivery penalties.

The Norwegian shipbuilding company attributed the delays to technical problems that required retesting of primary gas-turbine propulsion systems supplied to the Skjold (Shield)-class MTB project by Pratt & Whitney (P&W). The U.S. company's share of the project amounts to $40 million.

The Skjold-class MTBs constitute the Navy's biggest recent investment in stealthy fast-attack craft for littoral warfare. The project includes weapons and engineering input from Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace.

The late penalties deal reached with Umoe Mandal formed part of a wider agreement under which the shipyard guarantees that all six boats, as included in the original order, will be delivered to the Royal Norwegian Navy in the first half of 2012, according to the MoD. In effect, this means the delivery of the final vessel in the series.

The agreement on penalties is important for Umoe Mandal, which has suffered losses due to the delays in the project. Moreover, the company continues to struggle to win significant new shipbuilding orders. The yard has been left with expensive over-capacity, leading to reorganization in the form of redundancies and dismissals.

Construction of the five Skjold-class boats has been underway since 2003 and was the shipyard's main activity in 2010. The level of completion in the project at the end of last year was 98.5 percent.

However, the project experienced substantial off-schedule delays because of the need to run additional test sequences and programs for the propulsion systems delivered by P&W.

Umoe Mandal informed the MoD last December that it had overcome most of the chief technical issues in the second half of the year.

The last MTB in the series had been scheduled for delivery during the first half of 2011, but it accrued day penalties and other compensations when new delays forced the delivery date to be pushed-back to 2012.

The gas turbine propulsion systems ordered from P&W feature two ST18M marine gas turbines and two ST40M marine gas turbines. The ST18M and ST40M are free turbine turboshaft engines derived, respectively, from Pratt & Whitney Canada's PW100 and PW150A aviation turboprop power plants.