ARCHIVED - Cartagena submarine refit could be ready to re-start

Optimism is rife at the Navantia yards that agreement has been reached

The economic crisis has hit the Navantia shipyards in Cartagena hard, and for almost ten months the company has been waiting for the go-ahead to begin work on the major refit of the navy’s S-74 Tramontana submarine. The work has repeatedly been put on hold due to Ministry of Defence spending cutbacks, but now it appears that a breakthrough may have been made and work could be about to start in the next three or four weeks.

No official agreement is reported to have been signed yet, but apparently the navy has given the order for the sub to be raised out of the water in order for preparatory work to begin.
The refit will provide employment for 300 workers for eighteen months, with ancillary companies being needed only for the finishing touches such as repainting. As such it’s not hard to understand that Navantia are eager to secure an agreement which allows them to go ahead with this fourth overhaul of the last in the S-70 class, and have been negotiating a way to do so since last summer.

The crux of negotiations has been the price of the refit, which was originally quoted at 40 million euros, and unofficial reports say that this has now been lowered dramatically. When completed, the update and refit of the Tramontana will allow it to continue in service for at least another five years, giving the Navy sufficient submarine cover to fulfil its Nato obligations while waiting for the technical design difficulties experienced on the prototype of the new S-80 to be resolved and the first S-81 to undergo sea trials before entering service.
Assuming that the green light is given, the next major task facing the Navantia management is to unblock work on this new S-80 series of submarines. This is another project which is currently on hold, and only last week Pedro Morenés, the Minister for Defence, said in parliament that it is not possible to set dates either for work to re-start or for the first S-80 to be delivered.

Those suffering most from these delays are, of course, the workforce, who are constantly caught between hope and despair as dates are first suggested and then ruled out. Hopes are now high that the S-74 refit is up and running again, and their livelihoods are therefore a little more secure in the short term.