Navy awards Huntington Ingalls Boise overhaul contract

The Navy today awarded a $59.7 million contract to Huntington Ingalls Industries for the overhaul of the attack submarine Boise (SSN-764) because of a backlog at the public shipyards.

The contract includes options that, if exercised, would bring the value to $385 million. The Boise's maintenance work, which the Navy expects to be complete by February 2021, will be conducted at Newport News Shipbuilding.

"This contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with two offers received," according to the Pentagon announcement.

The Navy issued a solicitation for the engineering overhaul in March. An engineering overhaul for an attack submarine typically takes about 24 months. The Boise has sat pierside for the past 54 months because of the public shipyard backlog, according to the Navy.

Since 2012, six submarine maintenance availabilities have been sent to private shipyards, some to General Dynamics Electric Boat and some to NNS, Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources, told the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee in March.

Sending submarine maintenance work to a private shipyard, rather than a public shipyard, costs the service about 20 percent more, Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, Naval Sea Systems Command chief, told Inside Defense in March.

"But it's a tradeoff -- making the submarine available and not using it operationally, we'll choose to pay that premium if we have to," Moore said.