Bollinger Shipyards announced Thursday that its Pascagoula Mississippi shipyard now exceeds 1,000 employees, touting the milestone as it gears up to make the first heavy icebreaker in the U.S. in more than 50 years – vessels Washington is keen to produce more of as it partners with Canada and Finland in a pact to bolster icebreaker fleets.
The three countries announced the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, or ICE Pact, in a joint statement during the NATO summit in Washington on Thursday. The trilateral agreement aims to build “best-in-class Arctic and polar icebreakers and other Arctic and polar capabilities in each of our respective countries by sharing expertise, information, and capabilities.”
The pact aims to “leverage shipyards” in all three countries to build the icebreakers by collaborating on information sharing and workforce development while encouraging allies and partners to buy the vessels from those states.
“We are seeing an increasing need for those icebreakers from partners around the world who want to operate in both the Arctic and the Antarctic region and can operate there with greater freedom than before because of the impacts of climate change,” said National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
“There are authoritarian nations that are offering icebreakers to the world who want to corner the icebreaker market. We’re determined to have democracies in the lead and producing icebreaker capabilities.”
Sullivan noted that “both Canada and Finland have considerable experience in shipyards and producing icebreakers.”
The U.S. operates two Polar icebreakers, both of which are nearing the end of their usable life.
“The U.S. is currently producing icebreakers for our Coast Guard, but we would like to expand that to include building icebreakers here in the United States – American-made, American-jobs to sell to countries around the world as well,” said Sullivan. “We then will have the industrial base for a capability that has economic and strategic purposes.”
The Coast Guard is already working with Bollinger to build the first Polar Security Cutters.
“As the premiere builder of American-made polar icebreakers, Bollinger Shipyards is proud to support the United States and our NATO allies with our deep expertise and capacity,” said CEO Ben Bordelon. “We have made, and will continue to make, significant, long-term investments in our facilities, infrastructure and workforce.
“Our goal is to create a world-class American-owned shipyard capable of producing the first fleet of American-made polar icebreakers in over half a century, and we’re honored that responsibility lies with Bollinger.”
Bollinger touted the 1,000-worker benchmark as “a substantial reversal of a decade-long trend of declining employment under the Pascagoula facility’s previous owner.”
Competition for employees among shipyards in the Gulf of Mexico is fierce, with employers vying to hire for positions ranging from engineers to welders to a whole host of other positions from a limited workforce pool.
The Biden administration in 2022 released a 10-year Arctic strategy that calls for the procurement of additional icebreakers as a key pillar.
The strategy emphasizes deterring increased Russian and Chinese activity in the region as global warming rapidly melts the polar ice caps, drastically transforming the environment.
Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.
