THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 7, 1995 TAG: 9501070213
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
Two South Hampton Roads shipyards won contracts in the past week that will buoy them through the often slow winter months.
The Navy awarded Norshipco, the largest private shipyard in South Hampton Roads, more than $12 million of contracts for work on the destroyer Briscoe and dock landing ship Tortuga.
Metro Machine Corp. won a $5.48 million contract from the Navy to berth and repair the guided missile cruiser San Jacinto.
The Navy also awarded a $33.5 million contract to Newport News Shipbuilding for research anddevelopment on the Seawolf program and the advanced submarine project.
That contract is but a drop in the giant Peninsula shipyard's $6 billion backlog, while the contracts won by the two Norfolk shipyards will help sustain them through the first part of the year.
``It keeps the people that are working here right now working well into the summer,'' said Ernest C. Riley, vice president of contract administration at Norshipco.
The $8.06 million contract on the Briscoe calls for an extended drydocking and other work from late January through July. The $4.4 million Tortuga job will begin Jan. 30 and last through May.
The work means Norshipco won't have to lay off any of its more than 2,200 employees this winter.
Officials at Metro Machine could not be reached late Friday to comment on the San Jacinto contract. Metro Machine employs about 700 workers.
Recently, shipyards throughout Hampton Roads have seen their work ebb in the winter and summer months based on Navy work cycles. Last summer, Norshipco had to layoff nearly 1,000 workers for a few months as it scrambled for work.
This winter, there's more Navy work to go around. Other shipyards, such as Jonathan Corp. and Moon Engineering Inc., have recently won Navy contracts.
Newport News Shipbuilding's submarine research and development contract was awarded late Thursday by the Pentagon.
While the Defense Department plans to build submarines at General Dynamic Corp.'s Electric Boat shipyard in Connecticut, Newport News Shipbuilding, which has built dozens of subs in the past, will continue to have a supporting role.
Work on that new contract will continue through October 1997.
Meanwhile, Associated Naval Architects, a small Portsmouth shipyard, won a $498,725 Navy contract for a work on a utility landing craft.
KEYWORDS: SHIP REPAIR CONTRACTS SHIPYARDS by CNB