USS Product Carriers LLC in Edison, NJ won a $51.3 million fixed-price contract with reimbursable items for the time charter of two new-build, U.S.-flagged tankers. These ships are being built at National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego, CA, and will deliver in 2010 and 2011. Once delivered, they will operate around the globe in support of U.S. military forces, replacing the government-owned T-5 Champion Class tankers [T-AOT 1122-1125] that are expected to reach the end of their service life in 2010.
This contract includes 3 one-year option periods and one 11-month option, which if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $219.8 million plus reimbursable costs like fuel and port charges. Work is expected to be completed October 2011 (August 2015 if all option periods are exercised). This contract was competitively procured with over 85 proposals solicited and 6 offers received by the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command in Washington, DC (N00033-07-C-5416).
Boeing subsidiary McDonnell Douglas Corp. in St. Louis, MO received a $90 million modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-04-C-0014) for “the procurement of a newly developed, additional capability for the AN/APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array radar.” Work will be performed in El Segundo, CA (95%) and St. Louis, MO (5%), and is expected to be complete in September 2011. The Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, MD issued the contract.
Raytheon’s APG-79 will equip the new F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet Block II aircraft and the derivative EA-18G “Growler” electronic warfare aircraft; its AESA design offers a number of new possibilities including simultaneous air/ground scans, wide-angle ground scans, electronic jamming functions, high-bandwidth communications, and probably a few more that the government prefers not to talk about yet. Our top bets re: the “new capability” in question would be the “big SAR” wide angle surface scans that will now be part of the production F-35 Lightning, or limited electronic warfare capabilities.
