Stephen W Pless News

Crowley Maritime Corp.’s government services group has been awarded a $130 million technical management contract for five U.S. government-owned, Military Sealift Command (MSC) Roll-On/Roll-Off and container ships (ROCON). The contract will see Crowley provide full turnkey operation and management of the fleet, including crewing and scheduled/unscheduled repair and drydocking services initially for one year with four, additional one-year options. The turnover phase for the ships began on October 1. Of the five ships, two will remain berthed in Jacksonville and three will be homeported in Norfolk – all within the service area of Crowley’s local offices. This contract will have a positive economic impact through the creation of several new jobs in both Jacksonville and Norfolk.

Keystone Prepositioning Services, Inc., Bala Cynwyd, Pa., is being awarded an $8,991,957 firm-fixed-price contract for the operation and maintenance of three of Military Sealift Command's government-owned Maritime Prepositioning Force ships:USNS Sgt. Matej Kocak, USNS Pfc. Eugene A. Obregon, and USNS Maj. Stephen W. Pless. The ships will continue to support at-sea prepositioning of equipment and supplies and surge-sealift requirements for the Department of Defense.This contract includes options, which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $47,403,888. The contract includes four one-year option periods and an annual award fee of up to $125,000 per ship.

Two Military Sealift Command ships delivered hundreds of pieces of U.S. Marine Corps equipment and containerized supplies to Thai ports in late January as preparations ramped up for Exercise Cobra Gold 2009, the major multi-national exercise scheduled for Feb. 4 - 17 in Thailand. Cobra Gold is a regularly scheduled joint and coalition multinational exercise hosted annually by the Kingdom of Thailand. Armed forces from Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and the United States are participating.

Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding Inc., Northrop Grumman Corp., Newport News, Va., is being awarded a $373,511,932 cost plus fixed fee contract for the construction preparation efforts for the second aircraft carrier of the Gerald R. Ford class (CVN 79). Efforts under contract will include engineering, detail design, test and evaluation, logistics support and the procurement of long lead time material. Special performance incentives are also included under the contract. Work will be performed in Newport News, Va., and is expected to be completed by October 2010. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-09-C-2116).

For more than 100 years Newport News Shipbuilding has held the distinction as one of the largest shipyards in the Western Hemisphere. The 550-acre facility, which is situated on a two-mile stretch along the James River in Newport News, Va., is best described as "a city within a shipyard," fully equipped to handle most any naval or commercial job, both newbuild and repair. MR/EN recently visited the yard to witness first hand how the world-famous yard utilizes more than a century of know how and an unmatched wealth of technical capability to get ailing ships — from "shave and haircuts" to complicated reconstructions — in and out, on time and on budget.