Canadian Maritime Engineering’s new fabrication building is up and running on the former plywood lands, and already winning crucial contracts.
As we announced yesterday, CME was awarded a $2-million project building four steel barges for the Royal Canadian Navy.
CME president Tony Kennedy said while their Alberni Engineering facility could build and repair boats up to 40 feet long, their new facility can construct vessels up to 200 feet long, and launch them into a protected, deepwater port.
“We’ll start on the barges within the next couple of weeks and that will be about 6 months of work, and we’ve got other projects coming in which are starting to fill our order books quite nicely,” he said. “This is a good milestone because it sets us at a level that now we can get into the construction of larger vessels.”
Kennedy said CME will be adding to their current local workforce of 150 people, and will be hiring a variety of tradespeople for their new operation.
He said they will also start building vessels for oil and gas companies with coastal operations, and repairing large fishing and commercial vessels, and the next stage is to buy a floating drydock to allow refits on larger ships.
