Harland & Wolff has acquired a former Royal Navy mine hunting ship from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for an undisclosed sum.
The maritime engineering company is known for the famous Belfast shipyard where the Titanic was built, and its parent company InfraStrata plc bought Devon’s Appledore shipyard in August 2020 in a £7m deal.
The firm has now bought the former HMS Atherstone with a view to refurbishing it for non-military uses, discussions for which it said had “already commenced with interested parties”. Details of where the work will be done are not currently available.
The ship was accepted into naval service in the late 1980s and in 2015 returned from a two-year deployment to the Persian Gulf where it supported peace keeping operations.
The vessel, around 730 tonnes and 60 metres long and currently moored at HM Naval Base Portsmouth, was later decommissioned in 2017 and put up for sale in 2020.
Harland & Wolff is currently involved in a competition run by the MoD’s regeneration programme for another former mine hunter HMS Quorn (M55).
The firm said its acquisition of the former HMS Atherstone would “significantly de-risk” the M55 regeneration programme, as that the two vessels share a number of spare parts and components.
Harland & Wolff said if it was awarded the regeneration programme for the M55, it could use spare parts and components on the HMS Atherstone during the regeneration programme of the M55.
The company said It expected negotiations with the MoD on the M55 regeneration programme to be completed in “the next few weeks”.
Group chief executive John Wood, said: “I am delighted that we have acquired the former HMS Atherstone.
“The benefits of this acquisition are two-fold; we now can significantly de-risk the M55 regeneration programme by utilising spares and component parts common to the two vessels, which has been recognised by MoD and will certainly help in closing out the negotiations over the next few weeks.
“Secondly, we also can utilise this platform as the basis for other clients’ projects, which will be a valuable revenue stream for 2023. I am pleased that we have generated a lot of interest for the repurposing of the former HMS Atherstone, and I expect to make announcements in this regard as soon as we have executed a refurbishment contract with a counterparty.”
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