This Week in Government Tenders

This Week’s Highlight: Drought Resilience Commercialisation Initiative
13/02/2023
This Week’s Highlight: NSW Government legal panel
27/02/2023
Show all

This Week’s Highlight: Captain Cook Graving Dock

The 2019 Navy Capability Profile identified the Captain Cook Graving Dock (CCGD) at the Garden Island Defence Precinct in Sydney as a strategic national asset providing critical infrastructure to support Royal Australian Navy (RAN) vessels.

The CCGD has been operational since 1945 and is the only facility in Australia capable of dry docking the largest RAN vessels. The Department of Defence must actively manage the facility to ensure its continued availability. The closest dry-docking alternative is in Singapore. Since 1989, contractors on behalf of the Commonwealth have operated and maintained the dock. This business model will continue with the future Dock Operation and Reticulated Services (DORS) Contract.

Defence seeks a strategic partner for the operation and selective maintenance of the CCGD. The selective partner will supply enabling services to the Regional Maintenance Centre – East (RMC-E). This includes docking services, reticulated services, and asset management at CCGD and its supporting systems and assets.

The Request For Tender (RFT) is for the role of DORS Contract service provider. The focus of the DORS Contract is on the operation and maintenance of the products in support of ship sustainment, and not on the upgrade or update of infrastructure and/or assets.

The 2014 DORS Contract expires in May 2024. An important feature of the 2024 DORS Contract is for the successful tenderer to support the Commonwealth in becoming a better “informed owner” of the facility, thereby ensuring long-term strategic and investment decisions.

The 2024 DORS Contract includes:

· management of services

· docking services for Commonwealth vessels

· the operation of reticulated services

· other operating services

· limited engineering services

· limited maintenance services

· support resources

· implementation of a Capability Innovation and Efficiencies (CIE) program

· limited asset management services.

The RFT has several objectives. The Commonwealth is market testing the 2024 DORS Contract to:

· identify a service provider capable of effectively undertaking the strategic partner role

· supply a specialist group of services to RMC-E to ensure the 2024 DORS contract aligns with Plan Galileo’s Maritime Sustainment Model for the RAN fleet

· continue to become a better-informed owner of the CCGD, and its supporting systems and assets, to meet Navy’s future ship sustainment requirements

· improve the Commonwealth’s ability to obtain better value for money for the services provided.

The strategic partner will understand and manage all the DORS Contract assets to potentially support another 70 years+ of docking operations out of the Captain Cook Graving facility. Timeframe for delivery is December 2024 to May 2029.

The closing date for responses is 4pm ACT local time on 5 April 2023.

If you are after further advice on this topic or any opportunity listed below, feel free to contact us. You can also subscribe to this newsletter for regular weekly updates.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *