SHAH ALAM: Walk Like An Egyptian was a song made famous by an American band the Bangles. However, in building the Gowind corvette, the French firm DCNS and maybe the Egyptians, are beating our boys in Lumut.
Boustead Naval Shipyard started building RMN’s LCS, four months earlier than the first Gowind corvette build by DCNS for Egypt. The steel cutting ceremony for the first LCS was conducted at the IHX Metallix plant in Holland on Dec 3, 2014.
DCNS cut the first steel for the first Egyptian Gowind corvette on April 16, 2015. And some 18 months later on Sept. 17th, the vessel – Elfateh – was launched at the DCNS shipyard at Lorient.
Compare that to the LCS. Fabrication started in Lumut in late December, 2015 or early January, this year while the keel laying ceremony was only held on March 8. And almost six months later, no one will say officially about the launch date.
It was expected that DCNS will beat BNS to the punch. Lorient is a “hot” yard complete with steel cutting facilities while BNS is a “cold” one – it has not build any ships since the last Kedah-class, KD Selangor. Work on KD Selangor started in 2006 while the ship was launched in 2009 and commissioned a year later.
Furthermore, BNS has to rely on sub-contractors for the supply of steel and to cut them. It takes around three months for the shipyard to get the cut steel before it could start building any part. And that without any change in the production line.
If they are changes, invariably they will be in a new ship build, the steel cut three months ago has to be re-work or discarded completely, delaying the building process.
It is likely that DCNS also faced the same difficulties but with all the facilities within a shouting distance, any problems could be hammered out quickly.
Like us, Egypt is also building more Gowind corvettes in their own shipyard – three actually – but they had the presence of mind to get DCNS to build the first vessel so the French could sort out all of the problems first.
And problems have crop up, as in any new build. DCNS was expected to deliver the first Egypt Gowind in 2017 but now it could be delayed to 2019.
For the record, work on the first Gowind corvette to build in Egypt started at the Alexandria Shipyard on April 16, this year where the first metal, was cut.
BNS was supposed to deliver the first LCS also by 2019 but the word in the industry that it will only happen if we are very lucky.
RMN To Receive First Littoral Combat Ships In 2019 – Hishammuddin
LUMUT, March 8 (Bernama) — The efficiency of the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) will be further increased when it received the first batch of its Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) in 2019, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Tun Hussein said.
I was told that BNS are having production difficulties (as explained in the 5th paragraph) and progress is not as smooth as have been projected.
Who knows what stage of the LCS will be now if the first vessel was build at Lorient instead of Lumut. But that’s water under the bridge now .
I have stated before that I am not very optimistic about the delivery time of the LCS. I sincerely hope I am proven wrong this time around.
Edited to add: The Auditor General visited BNS on Sept 1, probably his first visit to the yard after the report back in 2006 which detailed the NGPV travails. Perhaps the 2016 Auditor General report will include the audit of the project. The release in the RMN website is sparse on details and the pictures are also mostly on the officials. There is a picture of the LCS being built but its only served as a background.
To see the report – in Malay – go here.
* Note. The post on the steel cutting ceremony were among those that went missing after Malaysian Defence server crashed last year.
— Malaysian Defence
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View Comments (43)
Come on... where all the RM 8 billion+ go?
Don't tell me it wasn't enough.
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Most of the money is still with the Treasury. BNS can only claim the money based on the progress of the ships.
Why am I not surprised?
Defence local industry already failed many times. Latest news said that BNS has financial difficulty due to this project, right? Will SGPV follow the NGPV story?
http://www.thestar.com.my/business/busines...steads-results/
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I believed its a cash flow problems, they need to finish the ships to get the money.
still not change...wasting time and money..never learn..
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We were committed once the decision was made in 1997 to give the NGPV project to Amin Shah.
Same old story, is this another amin shah 2.0 ? This is what we call 'you fail to plan then you planned to fail'. From the beginning BNS haven't equipped this shipyard with the complete facilities to build such a modern ship, without steel cutting facilities and has to rely on 'outside' source to do such works process. In construction if you delay, the 1001 costs will haunted the contractor and affecting the progress of project. Profit margin become small and this will cause financial disease for the contractor. The final stage of this financial disease the government have to appoint the kontraktor penyelamat to finish off the project.
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As BNS is part of public listed Boustead and partly owned by LTAT we can be sure no one will abscond. Whether they will be able to stick with the delivery dates and budget is another issue
There was also quite a bit of work that had to be performed, infrastructure wise, before BNS could start work. BNS would also have had to hire some people who are not part of its workforce - for the NGOPV programme they hired some Aussies who had prior experience on the ANZACs, to help with QC. As Marhalim has pointed out, since the NGOPV prgramme BNS has not been in the shipbuilding business; its business has been confined to refits, overhauls, etc. I'm not surprised that DCNS is doing things faster; it has the workforce, it has the experience and it has the infrastructure. For me, of far more important is that the LCS gets delivered on time, on spec and withing budget. I won't form any conclusions until then.
Any word on those two training vessels?
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The first vessel is due for commissioning next month
5 Lick - ''From the beginning BNS haven’t equipped this shipyard with the complete facilities to build such a modern ship, without steel cutting facilities and has to rely on ‘outside’ source to do such works process.''
They have the facilities - if they hadn't they wouldn't have been able to build the NGOPVs. When BNS received the contract it started on expending its infrastructure to cater for the LCS; it needs to as in addition to building the LCS it also has to continue its core business of doing refits and overhauls; as such additional facilities are needed. Lets what and see how things proceed instead of becoming premature prophets of doom. It still very early days to form any conclusions.
To be fair. We must not equate the opv project with BNS. The projwct was first awarded to Amin Shah n when the company went kaput, Boustead took over to salvage the project. The company i work for supplied certain software for the project. Under Boustead, they manage to complete the project.
But then Boustead has weaknesses. Many experienced personnel were let go after the project n there is no continuity. So everything has to start afresh all over again learning painful lessons.
Give them a chance. Once the first ship is completed, hopefully they will have learn all the painfull lessons anew n become better n more efficient in the following ships.
Lee,
I agree. Unfortunately people are quick in forming conclusions without being acquainted with all the facts and before the final result is known. As BNS hasn't constructed anything in almost a decade and has to not only construct the LCS but also simultaneously continue performing refits and overhauls [the Naval Dockyard was originally planned to be a refit/overhaul yard - the plan to construct ships came later] it is taken that its infrastructure has to be expended. We all know that DCNS could probably have constructed the ships faster and cheaper than having then constructed here but - like having the AV-8s built here rather than in Turkey - it's water under the bridge. Now all we can hope is that all 6 ships are delivered on time, on spec and within budget.
The RMN's immediate priorities now is the LMS and ASW helos - lets see what happens and how fast things can start rolling. On paper the Wildcat is the ideal choice as it shares common parts [including the engine] and we have experience on the Super Lynx. The problem is that ASW is a time consuming game requiring air assets to have the needed range, endurance and onboard space for torps and sonobuoys. The few operators that configured their Super Lynxs/Lynxs for ASW mostly didn't have a larger platform on hand so they had no alternative.
Imho to enhance bns capability,there must be a continuity to the sgpv program so that the skill sets and knowledge are not lost come 2022 when the last ship is expected to finish.As such plan should be in place for further ship building after that, maybe for the replacement of the current 5 light frigates(kd hang tuah to kd kasturi) using the updated gowind model perhaps