(See) Royal Navy: Fregattenklasse Typ 31 / Inspiration-Klasse

[Schneemann]

Babcock reveals GBP 90 million loss on Type 31 frigate contract

UK shipbuilding and services group Babcock has been forced to cut its profit guidance after reporting a GBP 90 million (USD 117 million) loss on the UK Royal Navy's five-ship Type 31 Inspiration-class general-purpose frigate programme.

Revealing the loss in a 17 July results update for the fiscal year (FY) ending 31 March 2024, the company said that the deterioration would be fully recognised in its FY 2024 accounts, expected to be announced on 26 July. It also disclosed that the Type 31 programme has been restructured following a detailed operational review “to protect the in-service date”.

Babcock – leading the Team 31 industry consortium with Thales, OMT, and BMT – was awarded a GBP1.25 billion design and build contract by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for five frigates based on the Arrowhead 140 design in November 2019. The class is being built at a new shipbuilding facility in Rosyth, with the first-of-class planned to enter service in 2027. All five ships are due for delivery by the end of 2028.

https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/def...e-contract

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[Schneemann]

Babcock cuts steel on third Type 31 Inspiration-class frigate, HMS Formidable

Babcock has formally cut steel on HMS Formidable, the third ship of five Inspiration class frigates being built for the Royal Navy at its Rosyth facility in Scotland, marking the official start of the ship’s build programme.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/202...ormidable/

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[Schneemann]

Beim Typ 31 (bislang 12 geplante Einheiten, davon fünf für die Royal Navy, drei für Polen und vier für Indonesien) scheinen sich Kostensteigerungen zu ergeben:

Babcock takes additional charge against Type 31 frigate programme [...]

Babcock has taken a further financial hit on the Royal Navy's (RN) Type 31 Inspiration-class frigate programme as a result of design changes and re-work impacting the first two ships of the class. The GBP140 million (USD187 million) charge, disclosed in a 13 May 2026 trading update, is the latest in a series of cost escalations to impact the five-ship Type 31 delivery programme, and takes the company's cumulative losses on the order to over GBP300 million. [...]

Reporting the GBP140 million non-recurring charge against the contract in a post close trading update for the financial year ending 31 March 2026, Babcock said the cost increases reflected higher than expected levels of re-work to first-of-class HMS Venturer resulting from changes to the design, and the long-term impacts of out-of-sequence build activity at earlier stages of the programme. “Whilst the number of such rework events is not entirely unexpected, the work is being performed in the later stages of completion and therefore is more complex and more costly,” the company said. “The ability to enable the work to be performed to support increasing levels of programme productivity has also been impacted.”

https://www.janes.com/defence-intelligen...-programme

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