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GAO questions lack of preliminary design review for polar icebreakers
Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has issued a report raising questions over the reliability of the estimated cost and schedule for developing new heavy polar icebreakers for the U.S. Coast Guard. The Department of Homeland Security, the agency that includes the Coast Guard, has accepted the GAO’s findings.
Currently the Coast Guard only operates two polar capable icebreakers: the Healy, a medium duty icebreaker, much used as a base for polar research, and the Polar Star, which is a heavy-duty icebreaker but is 41 years old. A third icebreaker, the Polar Sea, sister ship to the Polar Star, is laid up in port and has become a source of spare parts for the Polar Star.
The agency wants to build three new heavy-duty icebreakers and three medium icebreakers, in support of U.S. activities in polar regions. The GAO report focuses on the heavy icebreaker requirement.
Timing of the transition According to the GAO report, the Polar Star is currently expected to reach the end of its operational life somewhere between 2020 and 2023. Since, however, the first of the planned new icebreakers is not expected to be completed until 2024, the Coast Guard anticipates renovating the Polar Star’s systems, starting in 2020, to extend the life of the vessel until the first of the new vessels becomes available. But that 2024 schedule for the new vessel seems unreliable, the GAO report says.
The construction schedule for the new icebreakers appears to have been driven by the timing of the predicted gap in icebreaker availability, rather than by a realistic assessment of shipbuilding activities, the report says. Although the Coast Guard has followed standard DHS acquisition policies, the agency established design, cost and schedule baselines without first conducting a preliminary design review. Nor did the agency conduct an assessment of the maturity of the technologies planned to be used in the icebreakers, the report says.
From the perspective of program costs, the Coast Guard has not quantified the full range of potential costs over the entire life of the program. Thus, the cost estimate for the entire program may be underestimated, the GAO report says.
Cost and funding The Coast Guard has in the past indicated that each icebreaker may cost some $1 billion to construct. However, the agency has suggested that efficiencies arising from the use of a standardized design could reduce that cost to $900 million. The agency has requested $750 million in funding, which, together with existing icebreaker funds, the agency has said, could pay for the acquisition of the first icebreaker.
Congress recently passed a national defense authorization act, authorizing the construction of six polar class icebreakers. However, although the Senate has passed a funding bill that includes $750 million for icebreaker funding, the House of Representatives has not included the same level of funding in its equivalent bill.
Integrated program office Meanwhile, the Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy have been operating an integrated program office for the icebreaker project. That office includes a ship design team; a cost engineering and industrial analysis group; and a directorate for dealing with contracts. The office has already completed an analysis and selection of the best option for addressing the icebreaker issue and has conducted an evaluation of this option. Construction of the lead ship is expected to start no later than June 2021, with delivery of the vessel possible in the fourth quarter of 2023. The Coast Guard estimates the total full-lifecycle cost of the three-heavy-icebreaker program to be in the range of $8.5 billion to $9.8 billion, the GAO report says.
The DHS has been seeking technical proposals for the project, with price proposals anticipated in October.
Conceptual design Work on a conceptual design began back in 2016 and ultimately resulted in a design concept involving an integrated power plant providing electrical power for rotatable propulsion pods under the vessel’s stern. And, despite not having conducted a preliminary review for the design concept, the Coast Guard has used the concept as the basis for a cost estimate, the GAO report says. The predicted construction schedule is also based on this preliminary concept, rather than on a more mature design, the GAO report says.
The Coast Guard views the preliminary design as using proven technologies - the type of power plant and thruster system envisaged are already available commercially. But the agency has not assessed the readiness of the proposed technologies for achieving the icebreaker program objectives - it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the technologies in support of a different program or a different operating environment from what has already been demonstrated, the GAO report says.
Thus, although the icebreaker project team has thoroughly and accurately estimated the cost of the icebreaker project, within the parameters used for the estimating, there are remaining issues relating to the credibility of the estimates. The development schedule also appears optimistic. In addition, the Coast Guard and the Navy do not have a clear strategy for addressing any cost growth in the program, the GAO report says.
A number of recommendations The report makes a number of recommendations, including a recommendation that the icebreaker project team should conduct a technology readiness assessment of the conceptual icebreaker design. The team should revisit the cost and schedule estimates, taking full account of risks and uncertainties in the program, and addressing how to deal with any cost growth. DHS has agreed with the GAO recommendation and has identified actions for addressing the issues raised, the GAO report says.
- ALAN BAILEY
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