In the shipyard-rich West Coast, where a fairly steady stream of new construction projects for tugs and passenger vessels has occurred in recent years, as well as a wide variety of commercial repair contracts, it's easy to forget one of the U.S.'s largest shipbuilders is still going strong in San Diego, Calif.
National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), founded as a small machine shop in 1905, became, over the years, a major ship design, construction and repair operation. Nearly 100 years later, it shows no signs of slowing down. Aside from the yard's solid reputation for building vessels for the U.S. Navy, two interesting commercial contracts/agreements have come its way recently. One is a roughly $300 million contract for two 839-foot Ro/Ro vessels for Totem Ocean Trailer Express (TOTE). The other is a preliminary agreement with FastShip Atlantic to construct four ships (at an estimated $200 million each) with capacity for 1,432 TEUs that would be capable of crossing the Atlantic at 37.5 knots.
"Since the 1960s, more than half of our ships have been delivered to commercial customers," said Steven Clarey, NASSCO's marketing manager. ³We've done almost 50 percent of the Jones Act tanker fleet; containerships for Matson, and equally important are the many exclusive commercial ship design agreements for customers like British Petroleum, ARCO and American Classic Voyages," he said.
Once called California Iron Works, the machine shop and foundry moved to the San Diego waterfront to build ships in 1945. After beginning with a 52-foot wooden tunaboat, NASSCO has since built almost 300 commercial vessels.
The company has been through a few ownership changes as well. In 1959, NASSCO was acquired by the Henry J. Kaiser and Morrison-Knudsen companies. In 1979, Morrison-Knudsen acquired Kaiser's shares. In 1989, through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, NASSCO become an employee-owned company. Then, in 1998, defense contractor General Dynamics Corp., Falls Church, VA., bought NASSCO for a reported $370 million in cash plus the obligation to pay off about $45 million of the seller's debt. The purchase brought General Dynamic's holdings to three, including nuclear submarine builder Electric Boat in New London, Conn. and Bath Iron Works, the Navy's leading supplier of surface combat, located in Bath, Maine. NASSCO's revenues totaled $485 million by the end of 1998 .
|