Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News, Va. shipyard was awarded a $224 million contract modification to start acquiring long lead items and start the planning work on refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) of USS George Washington (CVN-73), according to a Department of Defense (DoD) contract announcement from last week.
The contract modification will allow Newport News for, “the first year of RCOH advanced planning, shipchecks, design, documentation, engineering, fabrication and preliminary shipyard or support facility work to prepare for and make ready for the RCOH,” read the award.
Last week, the Navy committed to fund the almost $4 billion RCOH as part of its Fiscal Year 2016 budget submission. The service said last year it couldn’t afford to fund the RCOH and the operations and maintenance costs of the crew of the ship and the air wing under the sequestration funding restrictions of the Budget Control Act of 2011.
“This contract award allows us to move beyond defueling and plan all the work associated with a full RCOH, which underscores the Navy’s continued commitment to ensuring this great national asset remains in the fleet and operational for another 25 years,” Chris Miner, Newport News Shipbuilding’s vice president, in-service aircraft carrier programs, said in a HII statement.
The company is currently doing the RCOH on USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) which is expected to be completed next year.
