Patrol Vessels for Brazil

[derek s.langsdon]

BAE Systems has won a 133 million pound contract to supply three Ocean Patrol vessels to Brazil.

Brazil intends to order five more such 90 metre long ships but those will be "home grown, built by Brazilian companies using design plans supp[lied by BAE.
under terms of the sale agreement.

BAE alresady had similar sale agreements with Thailand which caused some Union protests in the UK.

Overseas trade mission visits to Brazil helped in this expansion of British
shipbuilding for foreign clients with full agreement by the Government.

The three vessels being supplied to Brazil were already built for Trinidad and Tobago under a 2007 contract but the deal went sour.

Ther Managing Director of BAE said he hope this will be the beginning of a long
partnership with the Brazilian Maritime sector.

derek-L

[jainso31]

A very welcome piece of news to bring in the New year ,Derek.It is good to see that "we can still make ships that sell".:cool::cool:
Thank you for sharing that snippet with us.:):)

jainso31

[peter schofield]

BAE Brunei OPVs

Three ships came sailing by Cumbria and stopped in Barrow on a care and maintenance contract. The three Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) were built by BAE Systems’ Scotstoun yard on Clydeside in Scotland. They were ordered by the Sultanate of Brunei in South East Asia for the Royal Brunei Navy but were never put into service because of a squabble between Brunei and BAE. Brunei claimed the state-of-the-art vessels were not fit for its purpose and withheld £750m in final payments. BAE said they were what they ordered.

But Brunei finally accepted ownership of the ships following a drawn out arbitration process, but then hired Singapore-based Global Naval Systems as broker for their onward sale. In the meantime, the ships were moved one by one to Barrow and are still there.

The F2000 BAE-designed and built ships hosts an array of weapons including a Sea Wolf defence missile system, a super rapid gun, and Exocet anti-ship missile system. The ships are being looked after by a dedicated team of 16 people employed by James Fisher Defence which won the care and maintenance contract. The contract includes guards living aboard one of the vessels and occasionally they go to sea.

North West Evening Mail Speculation mounts that dock-bound warships could be soldLast updated at 15:33, Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Will 2010 finally see a sale of the three warships which have been stored in Barrow docks for the last two years? The international shipping magazine Sea Breezes has claimed the corvettes – small, manoeuvrable, lightly armed warships – may be sold to Algeria. They were built by BAE Systems in Glasgow for the Sultan of Brunei’s navy with a £600m price tag.
But when they were completed, a row broke out between the company and Brunei, which refused to complete payments. Arbitration finally ruled that Brunei should complete payments and Brunei paid for the ships but said it would not be commissioning them into its navy. Instead, it commissioned German shipbuilding firm, Lurssen, to find a buyer for the vessels.
The November issue of Sea Breezes said: “News reports that have emerged in the last few weeks indicate that the three BAE Systems-built Corvettes built at great cost for the Sultan of Brunei, that have languished in Barrow in Furness for years, may finally have been sold to Algeria.
“The three ships were delivered between 2003 and 2004 but a major dispute between Brunei and the shipyard followed. “The deal appears to have been brokered by the German shipyard, Lurssen.” The first of the three ships, the Nakhoda Ragam arrived in Barrow from Glasgow in August 2007 and the same crew then fetched the other two.
James Fisher and Sons of Barrow won the contract to look after the three ships. The ships have been out on occasional runs to keep them in trim and show them to potential customers. It is believed Algerians have visited the ships. But in Barrow James Fisher Defence, a subsidiary of James Fisher and Sons, which has a maintenance and guard crew living on the ships, said it could not comment. The ships have provided useful income for port owner, ABP, in harbour dues.


They are still resident in Barrow docks.

[jbryce1437]

BAE Systems has won a 133 million pound contract to supply three Ocean Patrol vessels to Brazil.

Brazil intends to order five more such 90 metre long ships but those will be "home grown, built by Brazilian companies using design plans supp[lied by BAE.
under terms of the sale agreement.

BAE alresady had similar sale agreements with Thailand which caused some Union protests in the UK.

Overseas trade mission visits to Brazil helped in this expansion of British
shipbuilding for foreign clients with full agreement by the Government.

The three vessels being supplied to Brazil were already built for Trinidad and Tobago under a 2007 contract but the deal went sour.

Ther Managing Director of BAE said he hope this will be the beginning of a long
partnership with the Brazilian Maritime sector.

derek-L

There was a similar arrangement years ago, when Austin and Pickersgill shipyard at Sunderland designed the SD14 Shelter Deck cargo vessel in the 1960's. Shipyards in Mexico and Japan, and others, started to build them under licence.
We do not have ANY shipbuilding yards at Sunderland anymore:mad:
I think the Unions have right to be worried.

Jim

[KizmeRD]

"we can still make ships that sell"
jainso31

Er, are we celebrating the fact that 3 OPV's originally built for Trinidad & Tobago have now been offloaded to Brazil? - with a further 3 corvettes 'sold to, but not wanted by Brunei' and currently laid up in Barrow.

Surely the aim of the game is to produce a defence product that the contracted customer is satisfied with, not build ships that then have to be sold off cheap to any navy prepared to take them.

mb

[jainso31]

Er-no Michael-it is the report that Brazil has bought the three vessels, along with the design plans in order to build more themselves-all part of the sale agreement. Nothing at all to do with Brunei's reneging on final payment; because they(Brunei) said on receipt, that they were not fit for purpose-a likely tale!!::(
PS I note in the foregoing posts there is nothing in the way of explanation as to WHY Brunei found the vessels unfit for purpose.
jainso31!

[KizmeRD]

My apologies Jim, I just couldn't resist casting a fly on the water, knowing the bait would be taken!;). Anyway, I'm more than happy to see these 3 OPV's now being put into service (even if they were just a deal-sweetner for the Brazilian part of the project) - it's such a wasteful shame to see nice looking ships simply stuck in harbour doing nothing.
Hopefully there will be a buyer found soon for the 3 corvettes too (but that's Lurssen's problem, not BAE's). And whatever the problem was with Brunei not wanting to take final delivery, I feel certain that it had nothing to do with cost.
Best regards,
Michael

[jainso31]

Hook, line and sinker Michael-you crafty person you-the only other reason- apart from money- was to to give the British "one in the eye":(:(:(:(
I too was pleased to see this transaction go through.:):):):)

jainso31

[eskimosailor]

I find it odd that we are supplying warships to a country who, I believe, are busy supporting Argentina over their recent claims to the Falklands.
Steve

[brian james]

Never let money get in the way of an 'alliance'.... Look back at the French and Exocet!!!.........Brian

[KizmeRD]

I find it odd that we are supplying warships to a country who, I believe, are busy supporting Argentina over their recent claims to the Falklands.
Steve

And now that Brazil has the plans for building the new class of OPV's, I'm sure that, if required, they could supply these to the Argentine navy too!

mb

[jainso31]

I find it odd that we are supplying warships to a country who, I believe, are busy supporting Argentina over their recent claims to the Falklands.
Steve

As Brian has already said-all manufacturers of war equipment (large and small) sell to any nation (friendly or otherwise) who want their product(s); and is willing to pay the price.
Absolutely no sentiment in big business; and if covertness is required -so be it.:rolleyes:

jainso31

[Rob Hoole]

...And whatever the problem was with Brunei not wanting to take final delivery, I feel certain that it had nothing to do with cost.
Best regards,
Michael

From this larger article on the Asia Sentinel website dated 17 Jan 2011:
Brunei Finally Gets its Gunboats (http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2921&Itemid=388)

...Brunei’s decision to abruptly cancel the contract with BAe in 2004 on the grounds that the corvettes failed to meet technical specifications led to speculation that the more pressing reason was that the sultanate’s small navy would be overstretched by the manning and support demands of the three OPVs. Each of the three corvettes would have required a crew of about 100 personnel, which would effectively have doubled by the normal naval practice of training at least two full crews per warship. The new ships would have required at least another 600 men for even the most basic operations, not to mention shore-based support personnel, according to a military analyst based in the UK.

“Operating and maintaining this kit would absorb much of Brunei’s small cadre of technically proficient workers, few of whom would be remotely interested in bobbing around the South China Sea being shouted at by people considerably less competent than themselves,” the analyst said.

Another explanation for Brunei’s decision to reject the corvettes may be linked to the April 2003 stand-off between Malaysian and Brunei naval vessels. Acquiring the Nakhoda Ragam-class warships, which could only realistically ever be deployed against Malaysian naval units, would have been regarded by Kuala Lumpur as a potentially hostile act and their removal could well have formed an early part of the discussions that ultimately led to the 2009 and 2010 settlements of longstanding maritime boundary and resource disputes...

[jainso31]

Thank you Rob- for "voice of reason",which I have read carefully; and which makes such simple sense- as to why Brunei reneged on the deal; and which had nothing to do with the ships not being fit for purpose.:(:(:(:(
So now we know-at least, as far as I am concerned.:):):):)

jainso31

[peter schofield]

Warships for short people on sale
J Simpson - Thursday, 28 June 2007
Three new BAE warships worth £600m are looking for fresh buyers after Brunei, the country run by the world’s richest man, The Sultan of Brunei, decided it didn’t want them. But there is a catch for the resale — the ships were built for crews of short people. The ships were specially designed for the small people of the kingdom of Brunei, who average 5ft 6in.


Naval guns removed from warships stored in town
Monday, 04 April 2011
Three warships built for a foreign navy and stored in Barrow have been ”disarmed”.
READY FOR MAINTENANCE: Ship guns removed from the Brunei Patrol Offshore Corvettes, which are being stored for care and maintenance in Barrow The main guns were removed from the sleek ships.
The corvettes were built by BAE in Scotland for the Sultanate of Brunei. But the Far East state subsequently decided not to take them into service and hired a German shipbuilder to find buyers for them.
Internet websites have claimed the three ships are being bought by the Algerian navy but the claims have not been verified.
The vessels have been stored in Barrow for nearly four years on care and maintenance until a sale is agreed and interest in them by several countries was confirmed.
Local company James Fisher Defence won a contract to look after the ships and a Fisher crew lives aboard the side by side ships, which are periodically taken out of the docks for brief voyages to run their turbines.
The first vessel to be launched in Scotland is nearly eight years old.
The Evening Mail understands the Italian made guns were last week removed for cleaning and maintenance.
The guns were removed from the ships after preparations by Barrow firm Agrilek and appear to be standing on crates at the docks.
The guns will be returned to the ships when cleaned and maintained.
The three ships cost Brunei £600m

[jainso31]

And now that Brazil has the plans for building the new class of OPV's, I'm sure that, if required, they could supply these to the Argentine navy too!

mb

Michael
I somehow doubt this, as Brazil is expanding economically and commercially with the western world; and such a move now or in the early future; would breed distrust and thus damage her aspirations.

jainso31

[KizmeRD]

Michael
I somehow doubt this, as Brazil is expanding economically and commercially with the western world; and such a move now or in the early future; would breed distrust and thus damage her aspirations.

jainso31

I'm sure you're right Jim and I'll try to avoid provocative comments in future:o

And given it's growing economy and greater global significance, perhaps Brazil might also like to acquire a redundant RN carrier or two? (whoops, done it again!) :rolleyes:

Michael

[jainso31]

Michael
Methinks you are getting the "hang"of things; but sorry we are fresh out of "redundant" carriers at present-they take a while to build,equip and sea trial etc.
particularly in the current economic climate the UK is oppressed by.:(:(:(:(:(

jainso31