Large scale opportunity waiting to dock for local marine industry

Two leading shipbuilding operators in Australia recently hosted a New Zealand delegation, including Northland NZ, in Western Australia to better understand significant opportunities for our regional marine and engineering sectors to supply into international shipbuilding programmes.

The delegation from Aotearoa – which included Venture Taranaki, Taranaki Alliance (a group of engineering and marine businesses), along with Northland NZ – was hosted by Austal and Civmec, who are both based in Western Australia. During the three-day visit, from 27 to 29 July, Northland NZ gained an understanding of the requirements and opportunities of the industry there, while promoting Northland’s marine industry capability.

The visit opened early-stage discussions about opportunities that would be game changing for Te Tai Tokerau Northland says Head of Investment at Northland NZ, Tui Rutherford. These include recovering lost marine industry jobs, developing a long-term building and maintenance industry, partnering with local hapū, and securing supply chain contracts .

“Both Austal and Civmec have operations at a scale that makes it harder to fulfil smaller packages and modules of the shipbuilding process. Venture Taranaki has been key in identifying and engaging them to look at how our regional capabilities could resolve this.”

Rutherford says the visit showed an increasing demand for trusted partners who can deliver specialist engineering services and that significant opportunities exist for Northland’s marine, engineering and manufacturing capability within a multi-billion-dollar shipbuilding pipeline.

“This visit was an important first step and while it’s still early days, there is a long-term significant opportunity being discussed to supply into large build programmes, in particular defence programmes.”

Civmec is an engineering, construction and shipbuilding company, while Austal is a major global defence prime contract and shipbuilder that designs, constructs and sustains commercial and defence vessels for the Australian Defence Force, along with substantial international commercial and defence vessel build programmes.

If you're part of Northland's marine or engineering sector and would like to know more about these opportunities, contact Northland NZ. 

PHOTO CAPTIONS

Main photo - Tui Rutherford, Northland NZ (far right) was part of the NZ delegation that toured Civmec's shipbuilding facilities in Western Australia.

Photo above and right - the New Zealand delegation included Venture Taranaki, Taranaki Alliance (a group of engineering and marine businesses), and Northland NZ.

Photo below - Civmec's shipyard in Western Australia.

Civmec's shipyard in Western Australia.