The U.S. Coast Guard’s “highest investment priority,” the $17.6 billion Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) program, faces additional delay. After blowing through a contractual delivery date of June 2023, governmental auditors are already suggesting that the new delivery estimate of late 2024, coming as Panama City-based OPC shipbuilder Eastern Shipbuilding Group inks an array of new commercial and governmental contracts, is optimistic.

The Coast Guard, in an emailed statement, now estimates that Eastern Shipbuilding Group will deliver the future Coast Guard Cutter Argus, the first of the Coast Guard’s much-needed OPCs, by September 30, 2024. The revised delivery target for the 360-foot vessel comes almost six years after the yard first cut steel for Argus back in January 2019.

There is a lot of additional analysis in the post.

As you may remember, Austal was awarded a contract in June 2022 that included options to build up to eleven OPCs, while Eastern’s contract for up to nine OPCs was truncated at four ships.

Thanks to Robert Cullison for bringing this to my attention.