Australia Picks Amentum and Laing O'Rourke for the Osborne Submarine Yard
The pair will act as Capability Partner on the first Australian site built to assemble nuclear-powered submarines.
The yard that will assemble Australia's nuclear-powered submarines now has its delivery partner. Amentum, the US engineering group, and Laing O'Rourke have been picked jointly to help build the site at Osborne in South Australia.
The appointment, made by Australian Naval Infrastructure, is a long-term Capability Partner role sitting inside that organisation's Integrated Delivery Office. Their remit covers managing the nuclear-related parts of the programme, overseeing construction, providing safety leadership, and coordinating work packages and the contractors delivering them.
The yard is intended to build the SSN-AUKUS boats, expected to displace around 10,000 tonnes. Osborne will be Australia's first dedicated construction site for conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines, and will need specialised facilities for assembly, outfitting, testing and commissioning. The stated principal challenge is coordinating nuclear and conventional construction areas on the same site — a sequencing and containment problem as much as an engineering one, and the reason a partner with nuclear licensing experience and a record of working with independent regulators was sought.
Mark Whitney, president of Amentum Energy and Environment, called the project a once-in-a-generation national endeavour and said it could shape Australian nuclear capability for decades. Amentum Australia managing director Kim Katheklakis said the company would provide support across governance, logistics, commissioning and digital engineering, with supply-chain quality also in scope.
Running in parallel is a A$12 billion upgrade at Henderson, near Perth. Defence Minister Richard Marles has said American access to the rebuilt yard is part of the arrangement, and that he anticipates US nuclear-powered vessels docking there. Henderson sits inside a 20-year plan to become Australia's main maintenance hub for nuclear-powered attack submarines, following an initial A$127 million upgrade announced last year. Its Defence Precinct is also slated to take on landing craft and general-purpose frigate construction, contingency docking and depot-level work, at a full cost that could reach A$25 billion across the coming decade.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said Henderson will host US and UK vessel rotations before Australia receives its first US Virginia-class submarines.
The employment figures are the political case. Henderson alone is estimated to support about 10,000 direct jobs over time, and the AUKUS effort as a whole is expected to create thousands of skilled roles in South Australia. Building the fleet requires Australia to develop a workforce, specialised supply chains and regulatory expertise that do not currently exist at the scale needed, over several decades of continuous construction and support.
The AUKUS agreement was signed in 2021 by Australia, Britain and the United States. The near-term step is buying Virginia-class boats from the United States; the longer one is co-developing the next-generation design with Britain. The result is nuclear propulsion without nuclear weapons.
