SHAH ALAM: The town of Lumut and the parliamentary constituency is the location of the RMN main naval base which bears the same name. It used to be known as RMN fleet headquarters until the service decided to split its fleet into two, the Western and Eastern commands.
As it housed the largest number of its fighting vessels, when the Lumut naval base was built in the early 80s, they also decided to build a dockyard to service the vessels. In 1999, the naval dockyard was taken over by Penang Shipbuilding Corporation Bhd under a privatisation programme. This was in concert with the company getting the contract to build the Kedah class. The rest is history of course which resulted in the shipyard being called Boustead Naval Shipyard.
Another shipyard located further away from Lumut town is Grade One Marine Shipyard Sdn Bhd (GOMS). Privately owned the shipyard has also gotten work from the RMN from refits to the completion of the two Samudera class training ships. It also built various vessels for the private sector from barges to offshore support vessels.
The third shipyard is an upstart, Gading Marine Sdn Bhd, located near GOMS, at Teluk Acheh in Sitiawan. It is the builder of the RMN FCBs and one of the companies which had offered to take part in LMS 2 Batch project.
There are other shipyards in the vicinity of the three mentioned above but most of them are mostly involved in supporting the private sector.
So, it is not surprising to see the current Lumut MP Nordin Mohd Ismail asking why the government is not awarding the LMS Batch 2 project to local companies. His written question published by the Dewan Rakyat on November 8 is below.
KOMANDER NORDIN BIN AHMAD ISMAIL TLDM (BERSARA) [LUMUT] minta MENTERI PERTAHANAN menyatakan rasional usaha pembangunan keupayaan industri pertahanan negara selama ini oleh pihak Kementerian Pertahanan apabila Kerajaan mengumumkan untuk memperolehi Kapal Littoral Mission Ship (LMS) Batch 2 daripada Negara Turkiye sedangkan syarikat pembinaan kapal tempatan mampu untuk
membina kapal jenis ini di dalam negara
And the answer from the Defence Minister:
YB DATO’ SERI UTAMA MOHAMAD BIN HAJI HASANMENTERI PERTAHANAN
Tuan Yang di-Pertua,
1. YAB Perdana Menteri semasa pembentangan Kajian Separuh Penggal, Rancangan Malaysia Ke-12 di Dewan yang mulia ini pada 11 September 2023 yang lalu telah menetapkan supaya Kementerian
Pertahanan dapat merombak sistem perolehan bagi memastikan pihak berkepakaran daripada Angkatan Tentera Malaysia (ATM) dapat menentukan sendiri spesifikasi aset atau peralatan yang diperlukan bagi mengelakkan ketirisan.
2. Oleh itu, satu pendekatan baru telah dibuat oleh Kementerian Pertahanan dengan mengenal pasti beberapa perolehan aset strategik agar dapat dilaksanakan menerusi pendekatan Government to
Government (G-to-G) untuk mengoptimumkan kepakaran yang dimiliki pihak pembuat yang telah terbukti melalui rekabentuk dan tempoh masa pembinaan yang lebih singkat selain bagi mengelakkan isu orang tengah.
3. Melalui pendekatan ini, industri pertahanan tempatan juga turut menerima manfaat secara tidak langsung yang mana setiap perolehan yang bernilai tinggi perlu menyediakan Program Kolaborasi Industri atau Industrial Collaboration Program (ICP) melalui transfer of know how atau transfer of technology di antara kedua-dua negara. Di samping itu, pendekatan ini juga akan memastikan perolehan aset tersebut dipantau oleh Kerajaan.
It must be noted Nordin retired from RMN with the rank of Commander. I do not have his biodata, but it is likely he himself is aware of the issues with Kedah and Samudera classes and the LCS.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (21)
only way lumut getting big fat contract again is when BNS nationalization is complete
No more please...our local shipyard already prove that they can't build large warship. Just let them stick to build smaller vessels
Haiqal - “…our local shipyard already prove that they can’t build large warship”
Absolute bollocks. With a yard being put through a learning curve; a realistic schedule; with the proper mechanisms and oversight in place and with no politicians and local companies meddling; there’s nothing to say that a local yard can’t deliver on schedule and within budget.
You also have to note that in the case of the LCS; BNS is not the sole entity whose at fault. The whole system failed.
It's sad ex-Navy officers take positions like this in parliament even if for political purposes, more so since the 2 key man in the LCS project are ex-Navy officers. Local shipyards have poor record building big ships. LCS is one, Kedah is the first. The MMEA OPV is the other one. No need to be a cheerleader about it and trying to play it safe. It's bad then it's bad. Can blame the system, blame the politicians, blame the lack of controls, blame the people, the fact remains the local shipyards failed to deliver, and it has cost RMN. Less we forget, BNS (from the days of PSC-ND) had more than 20+ years to learn building complex ships. Also, the shipbuilding pipeline is too limited to support a local industry, meaning there is no learning possible - BNS (and its predecessor PSC-ND) only had contract to build 12 warships in its existence. In fact, come 2030, after 30 years, if we're lucky the shipyard would still only have built 11 ships. In contrast ST Engineering had more than 40 ships over 28 years and have confirmed 6 new ships out to 2030. Learning is one thing, tolerating "still learning" after 20 plus years is not good enough. Not recognising learning is not possible because of limited pipeline is another. Local shipyards have proven capable of building certain type of ships because of good pipeline, so good for them that they win those contract - they can learn over time to build bigger ships. But for now, no need to be a cheerleader for local shipyards pitching to win big ships for RMN and MMEA.
ToT apa lagi???
Malaysian shipyards know how to build ships.
One off contract no need to buy total design rights.
Also GtoG without involving loval shipyards? How?
BNS has no capacity as it needs to complete the Gowinds. So how do you select which other shipyard to get this ToT??
I will repeat my stand. If Gowinds is what TLDM needs, then complete all 6 Gowinds. LMS Batch 2 cannot possibly become LCS stopgap as they cannot be completed before the 1st LCS is complete.
Rather than having a corvette with short range, i would prefer a smaller ship heavily armed with missiles (distributed lethality) that has the speed, range and endurance to sail with the LCS GOWINDs, becoming their loyal wingmans. That is what my proposed LMS-X should be.
Our local shipyards are suck at building warships. LCS and NGPV are prime examples this local shipyard must not be awarded any contract in the future. They will just screwed it over. Better to give it to foreign shipyard like the Japanese, Korea, or Turkiye. Local shipayard only good for maintenance. They can eat grass if they can't cope with it.
Azlan- Absolute bollocks. With a yard being put through a learning curve; a realistic schedule; with the proper mechanisms and oversight in place and with no politicians and local companies meddling; there’s nothing to say that a local yard can’t deliver on schedule and within budget.
Bold of you they learn anything from this debacle. They don't even learn from the first NGPV debacle. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice? Not gonna happen.
I think the Lumut MP made the statement only from a political point of view (ie keeping/creating jobs for his constituants), not from an ex-navy officer point of view (ie on time, on budget and on spec, or what customer/end user needs).
Just like Azlan said, to build a ship on time, on budget and on spec, a more improved/proper system should be implemented. But for the short term (now), better don't give corvette sized and above projects to local shipyards to build.
For example, built the first 3 LMS batch 2 in foreign shipyards while sending some locals there for training and gaining experience (much like with the Kedahs), then build the ship locally 1 at a time or built 1 locally 1st before building multiple locally in parallel (learning from mistakes done with LCS). Though this still doesnt guerantee anything
Wow...never knew Lumut housed many naval shipyard company 😯
Akmal - “They don’t even learn from the first NGPV debacle. .”
This may be news to you but BNS and the Naval Dockyard ate different entities; that the issues in both programmes were different and that problems which arised aren’t solely related to the yard but also the government and the very flawed poltibsly driven policy that is so entrenched.
Akmal - “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice? Not gonna happen”
Spare me the cliche.