A new fleet of tug boats ordered for the Australian Navy was secretly built at a Chinese shipyard under a $28 million contract awarded to a Dutch company last year, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported Thursday.
Citing certification documents, the ABC said the first of three “harbor tugs” was completed in late December at the Damen company’s “state-of-the-art” Changde facility in China’s southern Hunan province before being delivered to Australia.
In a letter sent from its Netherlands headquarters last year, Damen told Australia’s Defense Department the tug boat build “will be heavily reliant upon established supply chains both in Australia and overseas” but did not mention that any work would occur in China.
The second of its Azimuth Stern Drive (ASD) 2111 tug boats was due to arrive in Australia by May this year, while a third vessel will also be delivered before the end of 2025, according to the Damen correspondence
The defense department, in a statement, confirmed that the tug boats are being built in China with a subsequent “fit out” occurring in Vietnam but insisted they were not “Royal Australian Navy vessels and will be operated and crewed by a civilian vessel operator.”
The department said it is “retaining the option to crew the vessels in rare situations such as emergencies” and that similar tug boats have “provided harbor support to Defense for more than 10 years.”
Reacting to the report, the opposition said that Defense Minister Richard Marles has “serious questions to answer,” including what he knew of the Chinese build and any security mitigations that might be needed.
“Did Australia’s Defense Minister give the green light for two Royal Australian Navy vessels to be built in a Chinese shipyard or was he not across his brief?,” said Opposition Defense spokesman Andrew Hastie.
Marles is yet to respond.