First Export Contract for Frigate Design
Babcock secured its first export contract for the ARROWHEAD 140 (AH140) frigate design by signing a design license agreement with PT PAL Indonesia (Persero) at DSEI in London on 16 September.
State-owned PT PAL builds and maintains vessels for naval and commercial use in Surabaya, Indonesia. The contract comes just under two years after the design was ordered under the Royal Navy’s Type 31 frigate programme in November 2019. The baseline design can be configured to meet a broad range of naval requirements and, with Babcock’s support, PAL will now engineer the required modifications to build two vessels for the Indonesian Navy.
Babcock and the British government have been promoting the AH140 design in the global market and the company recently announced that AH140 has been down-selected for Poland’s MIECZNIK frigate programme.
“The beauty of our export product is that it is a readily transferable design that can be tailored to the customer’s needs as part of our strong Arrowhead frigate portfolio. What’s more, the design licence and subsequent build programme will be a significant catalyst for prosperity in Indonesia […] Working with our Indonesian colleagues, this contract will see Arrowhead 140 frigates built in Indonesia, by the local workforce, contributing directly to the social and economic value of its sovereign shipbuilding community and country as a whole,” stated David Lockwood, Babcock CEO.
The Arrowhead 140 frigate design benefits from a proven hull form that has been tried and tested in real-world operational environments, from NATO and coalition task forces to national regional and deployed operations. The baseline design can address the broad range of operational requirements and profiles that a global frigate may be called upon to undertake, and can also support interoperability between naval allies.
