Larsen & Toubro Launches Second Offshore Patrol Vessel for Indian Coast Guard
Larsen & Toubro on January 20 launched the second Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) of a series of seven OPVs for the Indian Coast Guard at the company’s greenfield defence shipyard in Kattupalli near Chennai.
The OPV was formally lowered into the waters of the Bay of Bengal at the hands of Natarajan, wife of ADG K Natarajan, PTM, TM, COMCG (Western Seaboard) of the Indian Coast Guard. She named the OPV ‘CGS Vijaya’.
The company received the Rs 1432 crore order for design and construction of seven OPVs from the Ministry of Defence in March 2015. The first OPV was launched in October 2017 and is presently undergoing trials.
“The launch of the second OPV, within three months from the launch of the first vessel and with overall completion of 85%, bears testimony to L&T’s proven project planning and execution capabilities,” the company said in a statement.
The Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) are approximately 97m long, 15m wide, has 3.6m draught, 2140 T displacement with a range of 5000 NM and can attain sustained speeds of up to 26 knots. “The entire design and construction processes have undergone dual certification from the American Bureau of Shipping and Indian Registrar of Shipping, and the project is being overseen by the Indian Coast Guard’s resident team at Kattupalli shipyard,” the statement added.
“It is heartening to see another ahead of schedule launch of a major defence vessel at the Kattupalli shipyard,” said CEO and Managing Director, Larsen & Toubro, S.N. Subrahmanyan. He further said, “Delivery of all 36 Interceptor Boats under the first contract from the Indian Coast Guard ahead of schedule, timely dispatch of the Floating Dock-2 and timely completion of various refit orders from the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard speak volumes about L&T’s stellar delivery performance. This stems from our deep-rooted ethos of nation-building and world-class ship design and fabrication capabilities. Today, we are amongst very few Indian shipyards that have the requisite capacity and financial strength to deliver complex defence vessels on time.”
“Today’s launch of OPV-2 signifies the launch of the ninth defence vessel by L&T in the current financial year. L&T is achieving new benchmarks of execution excellence with the construction of more defence vessels,” said Senior Executive Vice President & Whole-time Director (Defence), Larsen & Toubro, J.D. Patil. “With in-house capabilities to undertake ship design, in-house manufacturing of critical marine equipment, world-class shipyard infrastructure and robust financial strength, L&T are uniquely placed to fulfil the ambitious fleet expansion plans of the Indian Navy and Coast Guard,” he added.
Patil further said the company is also looking forward to participate in ‘Medium Refit and Life Extension Certification’ of EKM submarines of the Indian Navy. “We will be deploying our rich expertise in the field of design engineering and construction of submarines for this project, he added.
“It is indeed a remarkable achievement to surpass the construction timelines in a multi-project execution scenario,” said MD and CEO, L&T Shipbuilding, Vice Admiral B. Kannan (retired).