The British subsidiary of the Spanish company Navantia, Navantia UK, has signed this Wednesday as part of the “Team Resolute” consortium the contract for the construction of three logistics ships for the Auxiliary Fleet of the Royal Navy (Royal Navy). As the company has announced in a note, the heads of the firms that make up the consortium -Harland & Wolff, BMT and Navantia- have gone to the Northern Irish shipyards in Belfast to sign the agreement with the British Defense Ministers, Ben Wallace , and Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris.
It was on November 16 when the contract, valued at Real (Cádiz), was awarded to “Team Resolute”. The Fleet Solid Support (FSS) project, which has been designed by BMT and used Navantia’s “Shipyard 4.0” technology, will be carried out, in addition to Puerto Real, in Belfast and Appledore (south-west England).
The British Defense Minister highlighted at the ceremony that the collaboration with Navantia, which he described as “one of the world-class builders”, is intended to “bring their knowledge and support, and ensures that this is a long-term collaboration term into the future”. For his part, the president of Navantia, Ricardo Domínguez, expressed his company’s “pride” at participating in the FSS program, “which recognizes our technological excellence and which will mean industrial activity, skilled jobs and prosperity for both countries”. .
The program will involve more than 14 million hours of work in Spain and the United Kingdom. Production of the blocks will start in 2025 and all three ships will be operational in 2032 from additional work in the UK supply chain.
Despite everything, the labor opposition in the United Kingdom has harshly attacked the Government for allowing part of the construction of the auxiliary ships to be carried out in Cádiz, and has accused the conservative Executive in Parliament of creating a new “Spanish Navy”. on British territory.
