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Upgrade Works at Harland & Wolff’s Fabrication Halls in Preparation for UK Naval FSS Contract

27th September 2023
The Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, on a recent visit to the Belfast shipyard. Work has begun to improve existing fabrication halls to enable increased efficiency during Team Resolute’s Fleet Solid Support (FSS) £1.6 billion contract from the UK MoD for three replenishment vessels of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) to service the Royal Navy.
The Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, on a recent visit to the Belfast shipyard. Work has begun to improve existing fabrication halls to enable increased efficiency during Team Resolute’s Fleet Solid Support (FSS) £1.6 billion contract from the UK MoD for three replenishment vessels of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) to service the Royal Navy. Credit: harlandwolffplc/Linkedin

The historic shipyard of Harland & Wolff recently announced that work has begun to improve the existing fabrication halls at its Belfast facility, home to one of the largest deep-water dockyards in Europe.

The upgrades according to Harland & Wolff Group, will enable the highest quality work to be efficiently carried out during Team Resolute’s Fleet Solid Support (FSS) contract with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) as Afloat previously reported. This involves the assembly of three replenishment vessels (following initial construction in Spain) to serve the Royal Navy.

During a recent visit to the shipyard at Queen’s Island, the Leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, saw the beginning of the civil works and met apprentices set to work on the new contracts. She welcomed the developments as “brilliant news for the whole of the UK”.

As part of the FSS contract, awarded in January 2023 alongside partners in the Team Resolute consortium (comprising Navantia UK, Harland & Wolff and BMT), Harland & Wolf’s Belfast yard will build three 40,000-tonne vessels which will supply the Royal Navy fleet, and many NATO navies at sea, helping strengthen and safeguard the UK’s national security and maritime defence capability.

Winning the FSS contract unlocked £77m of investment in the company in preparation for constructing the three ships.

The upgrade of the Belfast shipyard – to adopt state-of-the-art shipbuilding techniques – will underpin Harland & Wolff’s capacity to deliver key naval programmes of FSS and beyond. Over the course of the FSS contract, at its peak, Harland & Wolff is expected to employ 1,200 personnel across its Belfast and Appledore shipyards, with an expected additional 800+ across the UK supply chain.

Improvements to Harland & Wolff’s Belfast site are being undertaken by Cleary Contracting, a local building company established in 1983, whom have been awarded a multi-million contract to deliver the infrastructure upgrades over the next 18 months, further supporting communities in Belfast and across Northern Ireland. The company expects to create at least 50 new jobs.

In addition to cutting edge automation and robotic machinery capabilities, the improvements include a 5,000m2 extension to the existing fabrication halls and will facilitate up to 16m2 of automated fabrication panels.

As part of Team Resolute, Harland & Wolff’s continued investment in its Belfast shipyard will secure long-term work for the local community. This investment has enabled Harland & Wolff to commence recruitment of new staff in many roles in all departments and upskilling present colleagues in their existing roles.

Published in Shipyards
Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore is a marine correspondent, researcher and photographer, specialising in Irish ports, shipping and the ferry sector serving the UK and directly to mainland Europe. Jehan also occasionally writes a column, 'Maritime' Dalkey for the (Dalkey Community Council Newsletter) in addition to contributing to UK marine periodicals. 

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Shipyards

Afloat will be focusing on news and developments of shipyards with newbuilds taking shape on either slipways and building halls.

The common practice of shipbuilding using modular construction, requires several yards make specific block sections that are towed to a single designated yard and joined together to complete the ship before been launched or floated out.

In addition, outfitting quays is where internal work on electrical and passenger facilities is installed (or upgraded if the ship is already in service). This work may involve newbuilds towed to another specialist yard, before the newbuild is completed as a new ship or of the same class, designed from the shipyard 'in-house' or from a naval architect consultancy. Shipyards also carry out repair and maintenance, overhaul, refit, survey, and conversion, for example, the addition or removal of cabins within a superstructure. All this requires ships to enter graving /dry-docks or floating drydocks, to enable access to the entire vessel out of the water.

Asides from shipbuilding, marine engineering projects such as offshore installations take place and others have diversified in the construction of offshore renewable projects, from wind-turbines and related tower structures. When ships are decommissioned and need to be disposed of, some yards have recycling facilities to segregate materials, though other vessels are run ashore, i.e. 'beached' and broken up there on site. The scrapped metal can be sold and made into other items.