Contracts totalling $190 million awarded to James Fisher Defence

The federal government has made two contract announcements, totalling $190 million and involving James Fisher Defence (JFD) Australia, covering diving and hyperbaric equipment, and submarine escape and rescue services.

According to a statement from defence industry minister Pat Conroy on Wednesday, $100 million was awarded to JFD for a five-year contract extension as Category Integrator for Support Services to the ADF on diving and hyperbaric equipment. 

The statement lists this as delivery of operating, engineering, maintenance, supply, and training services involving the Australian Defence Force’s dive equipment, recompression chambers and support equipment.

The hyperbaric equipment contract is expected to create 13 jobs at JFD Australia, which employs just under 120 nation-wide. Included is “the manufacture of recompression chambers at Beresfield in the NSW Hunter region, maintenance of rebreathers and hyperbaric chambers at Caringbah in southern Sydney and support of the submarine escape and rescue systems at Bibra Lake, south of Perth.”

A separate $90 million, four-year contract extension will see JFD continue to provide escape and rescue services supporting the Collins Class (pictured) fleet of submarines.

The latter extension will support 46 existing jobs at the company – mainly at Bibra Lake south of Perth – which has been providing its services to the Royal Australian Navy since 2009. 

The submarine rescue system work on the Collins includes “a remotely operated vehicle to locate the submarine, a submarine rescue vehicle which is used to rescue submariners, and a state of the art hyperbaric equipment suite to provide life-saving medical treatment.”

The submarine rescue system is based in WA, which is the current home of the Collins class and will be the base for Australia’s future conventionally-armed nuclear-powered Virginia class and SSN-AUKUS submarines.

Picture: credit James Fisher Defence/Linkedin

Further reading

AUKUS governments and industry press ‘go’ on submarine build

ASC, BAE Systems to begin planning, procurement to build SSN-AUKUS submarines

BAE Systems, ASC to construct Australian n-submarines