THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 4, 1995 TAG: 9501040430
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
Moon Engineering Co. Inc. has won its first in-yard Navy ship repair contract in nearly two years.
The $2.36 million contract for work on the guided-missile destroyer Barry was awarded to the small Portsmouth shipyard in late December.
The contract is particularly sweet for Moon, which has found itself in second place in the bidding for other Navy jobs a lot in the past two years, especially to Jonathan Corp., said Jim Thomas, the yard's executive vice president and general manager.
Jonathan also won a ship repair contract from the Navy in December for $1.17 million of work on the destroyer Conolly .
The new contracts should help keep workers at both yards busy this winter. Moon employs about 220 employees and Jonathan had more than 400 in November.
Hampton Roads shipyards have been scrambling for jobs since the Navy began downsizing after the Cold War. It's been a case of too many shipyards chasing too little work. The situation has produced cutthroat bidding that slashes profit margins to the bone.
Jonathan has already fallen victim to the difficulties. It is laboring to reorganize its finances under the protection of the federal bankruptcy court in Norfolk. It filed for bankruptcy in December 1993.
Moon has survived the past two years by doing work for the Military Sealift Command, the Maritime Administration, and on commercial tugs and barges, Thomas said.
``We've worked on anything we can get just like everyone else,'' he added.
It's also been doing some``down-river'' Navy jobs in which it performs the work at a Navy facility, Thomas said.
Moon doesn't expect to hire any new employees for the work on the Barry, Thomas said. The Norfolk-based Barry is scheduled to arrive at the yard Jan. 24 for the 75-day job. by CNB