Cardama shipyard makes history and begins the project of two OPVs patrol boats for Uruguay
The South American country government makes the first advance payment for the 86.75-metre-long units. This is the largest contract for the Vigo shipyard in its more than 100-year history
Cardama Shipyard has just received the first payment from the Government of Uruguay and officially begins to prepare the project for two offshore patrol vessels or OPVs. With this order, the Vigo shipyard has obtained one of the largest contracts in its 100 years of history.
Cardama was waiting for this first advance payment from Montevideo after having submitted the demanding guarantees from the country. The Minister of Defence of the outgoing Government (in the recent elections the opposition candidate, Yamandú Orsi, won) confirmed that only missing thing was to execute the money transfer. "Uruguay has to make an initial payment of eight million euros and so on," Armando Castaingdebat had said last October.
In this way, Cardama begins to prepare the project for these two military vessels measuring 86.75 metres-long by 12.2 metres-wide for a contract valued over 80 million euros and advanced by this means in summer 2023.
"We are very happy to be able to begin preparing the project and we appreciate the trust of Uruguayan authorities in our company for this purpose. This is one of the most important projects in our long history and a source of pride for the entire Spanish shipbuilding sector," summarized the shipyard in a brief statement.
Designed by the Basque engineering company Cintranaval, the ships will also have weapons from the Spanish firm Escribano, which will help Uruguay to update their Navy aging fleet and control its waters exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
This order also consolidates a wide range of orders for security forces currently existing. There are a total of 22 vessels of all types and sizes overpassing 260 million euros in total.
In fact, although several Spanish shipyards have worked for navies, with Navantia at the forefront, this is one of the largest contracts for military ships signed by a private shipyard, on a par with the two multipurpose vessels Armón Vigo is already manufacturing for the Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten).
Source: Faro de Vigo