Babcock wins GBP 560 million deep maintenance and Lifex contract for work on submarine HMS Victorious

UK defence contractor Babcock International and the UK’s Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA) have agreed a full cost recovery contract worth an estimated GBP 560 million for the deep maintenance and Lifex programme on the Royal Navy’s (RN) Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine HMS Victorious (S29).

The project, expected to take a minimum of four years, will be undertaken at Babcock’s submarine refit facility within HMNB Devonport, in Plymouth and will redeliver the boat back to the RN modernised and improved, enabling it to continue operational patrols well into the 2030s.

HMS Victorious, commissioned in January 1995, has already arrived in Devonport and work has already started following a commitment from the SDA to authorise early works from July 2023. Throughout the boat’s programme, more than 1,000 jobs will be sustained in the southwest of the UK.

HMS Victorious is the second of the Vanguard-class submarine to undergo a Lifex package at Babcock’s Devonport facility. It is hoped that this Lifex programme will be somewhat more successful than the first – HMS Vanguard’s programme which was to have taken four years and cost GBP 400 million, but instead took seven years and cost more than GBP 700 million. However, the work on this boat did include a refuelling of the nuclear propulsion system.

Babcock’s supports all of the UK’s submarine fleet. The capability and experience gained through delivery of similar complex projects, combined with new ways of working, is being applied to deliver this important overhaul programme at pace.

Commenting on the deep maintenance and Lifex of HMS Victorious, the RN’s Second Sea Lord, Vice-Admiral Martin Connell said: “The Royal Navy performs no more important mission than Operation Relentless, the continuous at sea strategic deterrent patrols have been performed by our submariners uninterrupted since 1969. The mission requires an unprecedented national effort in support, maintaining our Vanguard-class submarines to the very highest levels. The overhaul of HMS Victorious will allow the boat to carry out deterrent patrols until the next generation of submarines, the Dreadnought-class, enter service.”