Lockport firm wins Navy contract for Oman vessel

A Lockport-based shipbuilding company will partner with a New Orleans design team to build a 90-foot survey vessel for the country of Oman in a $7.3 million U.S. Navy contract.

Thoma-Sea Ship Builders LLC and New Orleans-based designer team Technology Associates Inc. were awarded a bid to build a catamaran hull hydrographic survey vessel under a Navy program that sells military supplies and assets to foreign governments.

Under the partnership agreement, Technology Associates will oversee the design, program management and integrated logistics support for Thoma-Sea.

The 96-foot long, 40-foot wide vessel will perform hydrographic surveys of harbors, approaches and bays of territorial waters of Oman, which is on the Persian Gulf.

This is the third Foreign Military Sales contract to be awarded in the Tri-parish region.

One of Gulf Island Fabrication’s subsidiaries – Houma-based Gulf Island Marine Fabricators LLC – was awarded a contract in March as a subcontractor on two offshore support vessels for the Iraqi Navy. Swiftships of Morgan City has a $180 million contract for other Iraqi naval boats and a $23 million agreement to train Iraqi sailors.

The first of Swiftships’ 15 patrol boats for the Iraqi Navy were delivered in May.