Page 27: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2022)

INTERVIEW RUSTY MURDAUGH, PRESIDENT, AUSTAL USA to build it in an expeditious manner. So As for opportunities, servicing our done in building ships is really our best in the short term, we’ll be doing top side own ships and leveraging our strengths opportunity to shine. It doesn’t matter work and other type of work in this yard is really key for us, but creating a state- to us, it’s agnostic whether it’s steel or while getting ready for the dry dock to of-the-art, new construction facility in aluminum. For us, the best opportunities get up and running in the August 2023 steel, and having a competitive advan- are leverage our strengths with these model. tage by using the same proven methods new elements of what we call our de-

From a strategic perspective, the dry and processes and people that we’ve ? ned total available market.

dock will be the right size, meaning we don’t run a dry dock that’s over the ca- pacity of the yard and competing with some of the bigger ship repair yards in San Diego. We believe there’s a big enough demand for LCSs and equiva- lent ships of size. So if you think about the middle market being frigates, LCSs,

EPS, our dry dock will be able to ac- commodate that size ship, which are really not ef? cient to put on a bigger dry dock and too big to put on a smaller dry dock. So we’re targeting the middle market, and speci? cally targeting LCSs.

In the context of the Austal

USA business as a whole looking at 2022 and be- yond, what do you consid- er to be your greatest chal- lenges and where do you see the best opportunities?

Creating and winning pro? table op- portunities to grow the business is one of the biggest challenges any shipyard has. It’s a contact sport. I can’t do much about companies that are willing to un- derbid the work; that’s just not Austal’s model. So for me, weathering the storm from when people buy into work to ? ll their yards is the hardest part and the challenge. But growing a business is dif? cult on its own in this industry. I just want to make sure the things that we are chasing and creating and winning create pro? table growth for my shareholders.

THE NEW DRYDOCK

FOR SAN DIEGO

Shipyard Sedef Shipyard, Turkey

Date to Enter Service August 2023

Lifting capacity 9,000 light tons

Length 531 ft. (162m)

Width 154 ft. (47m)

Draft 36 ft. (11m) www.marinelink.com 27

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