USA-Finland Icebreaker Deal Announcement Expected Today
The announcement is expected during a White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Finland's President Alexander Stubb
It looks like something big will happen later today. The Finnish press is in a bit of frenzy since Reuters broke this story:
WASHINGTON, Oct 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb will meet on Thursday at the White House to sign a pact for the U.S. Coast Guard to buy up to four icebreaker ships from Finnish shipyards, the White House and Stubb said.
Buying four ships from Finland likely means that two Finnish shipyards, Rauma Marine Constructions (RMC) and Davie/Helsinki Shipyard, are involved in the deal, with each building two icebreakers (of different designs) for the U.S. Coast Guard.
“We will then leverage Finnish expertise to construct up to seven new ASCs in shipyards located in the United States,” the [White House] official said.
The 11 Arctic security cutters - new medium icebreakers to be used by the U.S. Coast Guard - are expected to cost about $6.1 billion, the official said.
Three of the ships will be built by Davie in Galveston, Texas, and four will be built by Bollinger Shipyards in Houma, Louisiana, the official said.
The aim is for the first icebreaker to be delivered by 2028. The official said the deals would result in billions of dollars of new investment in the U.S. maritime industrial base and add thousands of skilled trades jobs for Americans.
This seems to confirm that the U.S. Coast Guard will be working with both shipyards.
The Davie/Helsinki Shipyard deal will build two icebreakers at Helsinki Shipyard and three at Gulf Copper Shipyard in Galveston, TX. Davie is finalizing acquisition of the Gulf Copper Shipyard and recently announced a $1 Billion planned investment to upgrade the shipyard’s facilities.
The other deal involves a consortium consisting of Bollinger, Canadian shipbuilder Seaspan, Finland’s Rauma Marine Constructions, and Finnish icebreaker design firm Aker Arctic. In this deal, Seaspan will license their Multi-Purpose Icebreaker design (originally done for the Canadian Coast Guard) for construction by RMC and Bollinger. According to the article, two ships will be built at RMC and four at Bollinger’s facility in Houma, Louisiana.
More to follow. You can be sure I’ll watching coverage of the visit, which begins at 3:00pm in Washington, DC (10:00pm in Finland).
Here is some information about these proposed designs/deals:
Exclusive First Look at Davie/Helsinki Shipyard's Arctic Security Cutter Design
(Note: This is another article that is too long for an e-mail message. Be sure to click on the link in order to read to the finish.)
Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy, the Multi-Purpose Icebreaker, and the U.S. Coast Guard
Those of you who follow icebreakers or the U.S. Coast Guard closely have probably read or heard about Canada’s Multi-Purpose Icebreaker (MPI) design. Seaspan, the Canadian shipyard that owns the design, has been marketing the MPI design for the U.S. Coast Guard’s Arctic Security Cutter (ASC) heavily for the past few months. Seaspan itself has just rec…
How to Build an Icebreaker in Three Years
Building icebreakers. It shouldn’t be that hard. European shipyards, especially those located in Finland, routinely design and build these specialized ships for a variety of purposes. In North America, however, it’s a different story. Both the U.S. and Canada have struggled over the past decade with delays in designing and building their own polar i…
Thanks for reading.
All the Best,
PGR
And now, if the Coast Guard can just resist the tendency to impose a whole bunch of non-value added requirements to the existing designs, we might actually see something in the water before to turn of the decade. Achieving a 2028 goal for the first might be very difficult, but I suspect the two Finnish yards will be doing their utmost to shine. Also we’re not starting with a clean sheet design so maybe construction can kick off relatively quickly. Finger crossed, but this all looks positive. I won’t say it’s doable yet, but it potentially could work out as hoped if everyone involved wants it to and gets on with it. Devil in the details as always.