BIW, rival make a deal
Officials at Bath Iron Works and its Mississippi competitor have reached an agreement on where the next Navy destroyers will be built.
The Bath shipyard and Northrop Grumman's Ingalls shipyard have agreed to a proposal by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that will shift work on all three DDG-1000 destroyers to Bath, according to The Times Record. BIW was originally slated to build the first DDG-1000 destroyer, and Ingalls was slated to build the second, with the fate of the third undetermined. Now, BIW will build all three $3 billion destroyers, and Ingalls will take over restarting the DDG-51 destroyer class. Work on that class, BIW's mainstay, has been winding down, but the Navy has opted to revive the $1.3 billion destroyer line.
BIW spokesman Jim DeMartini told the paper the agreement "is a good first step toward injecting stability in the shipbuilding environment." BIW has already started building the first DDG-1000 destroyer.
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