Page 15: of Marine News Magazine (September 2021)

14 16

Q&A sumer goods fuel growth. As ? eets age, the repair market is trending positively for the foreseeable future, which was the impetus for our new Port St. Joe facility and drydock project. We also saw our new dry dock as an opportunity to reduce costs and potential schedule disruption for our new construction projects since many of the new build projects require docking prior to delivery.

Will you please give a status update for the newbuild projects Eastern currently has underway and lined up?

JD: The Coast Guard awarded detail design for the Off- shore Patrol Cutter to Eastern on September 15, 2016.

Long Lead Time Materials (LLTM) was awarded in Sep- tember 2017. Construction began in ? scal year 2018. De- livery of the lead OPC is planned for ? scal year 2022.The contract includes options for production of up to four ves- sels. To date, Eastern has earned the award of construction for OPC one through three and the LLTM contracts for

OPC one through four. We have earned those contracts by executing for our USCG customer on time and on budget.

The USCG plans to award construction of the fourth cut- ter in spring of 2022.

ESG recently completed Builder’s Trials and Contract

Where do you see best opportunities for

Trials for the ? rst of three NYCDOT Staten Island Ol-

Eastern Shipbuilding Group today?

JD: We see a lot of opportunity in the defense sector, lis Class ferries and has received ABS class certi? cates as which is why we have dedicated our Nelson St. Shipyard well as the USCG Certi? cate of Inspection. The vessel was to the U.S. Coast Guard Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) recently towed to New York Harbor and is preparing its ? nal acceptance trials, which is essentially duplicating the program. We are committed to delivering high quality, in- novative, and ef? cient OPCs to the men and women of trials it has already completed at our facilities in Panama

City, Fla. Construction of the second and third ferries are the Coast Guard on or ahead of schedule. We are compet- ing for Stage II of the program, which would be ships ? ve continuing on schedule, and we look forward to delivering them to our customer and its ridership.

through 15 over the next 15 years.

We are honored that Weeks Marine decided to return

We also expect to continue to see opportunities in the commercial dredge and offshore wind markets. We were to Eastern Shipbuilding for another hopper dredge. Our experience dealing with them on the Magdalen was a very recently awarded a second hopper dredge from Weeks Ma- rine. ESG’s business is based on superb customer relations good one, and together we delivered a state-of-the-art hop- and a high performing workforce with proven results. We per dredge to the Jones Act Fleet. We continue to make are committed to continuing our tradition of service to great progress on their second vessel—a 8,550-cubic-yard our commercial customers worldwide, and with our newly twin screw trailing suction hopper dredge—and we remain on schedule and on budget despite building the vessel in opened Port St. Joe facility, we are also committed to be- coming a trusted partner for vessel sustainment for both the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the third hopper dredge to be built by ESG, and it cements our commercial and government customers.

position as a proven builder of large, highly sophisticated

In addition, we see growth in the energy and transporta- hopper dredges.

tion sectors where energy development and the rise in con- www.marinelink.com MN 15|