Alabama Shipyard to Repair MSC Tanker
World Marine of Alabama (WMA), a division of World Marine, LLC, competitively bid and won a contract to dry-dock and repair the USNS Lawrence H. Gianella (T-AOT-1125), a Military Sealift Command (MSC) tanker operated by Ocean Shipholdings, Inc.
World Marine, LLC purchased all the assets of Signal International in December 2015, including the Mobile, Alabama-based shipyard. World Marine remains one of the safest shipyards in the country, with its Alabama facility boasting zero accidents for over 460 days, and an OSHA total recordable injury rate (TRIR) of 0.0 for 2015.
Ocean Shipholdings is a Houston-based vessel operations company with a history of successful projects with the Mobile shipyard. The contract is expected to commence in late April for 45 calendar days. Under the contract, WMA will be completing many repair items, including steel and pipe renewals, underwater and freeboard hull cleaning and painting, ballast tank inspections and painting, main and generator engine overhauls, electrical switchgear cleaning and motor overhauls, sea valve rebuilding, and more.
According to Robert Beckmann, WMA’s Senior Vice President and General Manager, across-the-board craft hiring of some 60 full-time workers will begin immediately in anticipation of the vessel’s arrival. He said, “This is a great job for World Marine and an excellent project to showcase our skills to the industry. We expect an on-time and on-schedule redelivery of the ship.”
The USNS Lawrence H. Gianella is 615 feet long, 90 feet wide and carries over 237 thousand barrels of petroleum cargo. This government owned vessel delivers petroleum products to Department of Defense storage and distribution facilities worldwide, including occasional fuel delivery trips to Antarctica.
