Nassco Wins a Major Shipbuilding Contract : Employment: Hundreds of new workers will be hired to build a 713-foot container ship for Matson.
In what is being described as the first large commercial shipbuilding contract awarded to a U.S. shipyard since 1984, National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. on Wednesday announced it has received a $129-million contract to build a container ship for Matson Navigation of San Francisco.
The contract, which will create 700 new jobs at the Harbor Drive shipyard, is Nassco’s first commercial ship project since it delivered the Exxon Valdez oil tanker in 1986, Nassco vice president Fred Hallett said Wednesday.
The Valdez is now undergoing repairs at Nassco after running aground off the coast of Alaska last year, causing the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
Work on Matson’s 713-foot container ship will begin in January, 1991, and be completed by June, 1992. The 42,600-displacement ton ship will be capable of storing the equivalent of 1,650 24-foot containers and will ply ocean routes from the Pacific Coast to Hawaii, Matson said in a statement.
Nassco’s current work force of 3,200 is now building two fast combat support ships for the Navy. The yard also does Navy and commercial repair. A management group acquired Nassco in April, 1989, from former parent Morrison-Knudsen of Boise, Ida.
Nassco won the Matson contract in a competition with “four or five” other U.S. shipbuilders, Hallett said. Nassco could not have won the contract had the bidding been open to international competitors because Korean, Japanese and West German shipyards receive government subsidies with which they can underbid any U.S. shipbuilder, he said.
The new, diesel-powered vessel to be built by Nassco will bring to nine the container ships operated by Matson.
