The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] a $188 million contract for advance planning to prepare for the refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) work on the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
This award provides for the first year of RCOH advance planning efforts and includes activities like material forecasting, long-lead time material procurement, purchase order development, technical document and drawing development, scheduling, developing cost estimates for work to be accomplished, and pre-overhaul tests and inspections.
HII noted future modifications could extend this period of performance to 30 months and increase the total value if additional options are exercised. Planning for the RCOH is set to start this month.
The advance work will occur at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) facility in Virginia and is expected to be finished by July 2019. The Stennis is set to start the RCOH process in January 2021.
“The planning stage is critically important to the overall success of an engineering and construction project of this magnitude. This contract allows us to prepare for each step in the overhaul process from preparing for the ship’s arrival at Newport News to its re-delivery back to the Navy,” Chris Miner, vice president for In-Service Aircraft Carrier Programs at NNS, said in a statement.
The Navy said $149 million in fiscal year 2017 and 2018 shipbuilding and conversion funds were obligated at award time and will not expire at the end of this fiscal year.
The CVN-74 was first delivered to the Navy in 1995 and will become the seventh Nimitz-class carrier to undergo an RCOH. HII noted this RCOH will represent 35 percent of all maintenance and modernization completed during the ship’s expected 50-year service life.