As we all know, the submarine procurement project between France and Australia was “intervened” by the United States last year. There was a lot of trouble, which once caused tension among the three countries. Fortunately, after continuous efforts to repair, the relationship between the three countries has returned to good. Of course, the Americans still got the economic benefits they wanted. They replaced the 12 conventional submarines of the French with 8 attack nuclear submarines and sold them to the Australians. Equipment procurement costs as high as 80 billion US dollars. What you need to know is that the total amount of the France-Australia project was less than 45 billion U.S. dollars! If other projects such as post-guarantee are taken into account, the US-Australia arms deal has reached 160 billion U.S. dollars, and a single ship is a terrifying 20 billion U.S. dollars.
But the Australians are willing, after all, they got 8 attacking nuclear submarines at one time, allowing them to rank among the global maritime military powers! Australians always have fun in their dreams. Back then, the navy could be said to be unpopular. Now that they finally have the opportunity to soar into the sky, are you excited or not? They have always dreamed of becoming “Deputy Y”. Therefore, when the plan came, Australia did not back down in the face of high prices, and even ignored the outrageous cost of a single Orcus attack nuclear submarine.
In the field of the current global shipbuilding industry, the once powerful country of the United States has long since fallen, and has not completed any large-scale civil shipbuilding tasks in the past two decades. On the contrary, the three countries in East Asia have become the main force in this regard, but in recent years Japan has not been as good as before, while China and South Korea maintain a state of competition. They obtain more than 99% of the global construction tonnage each year, adding up to nearly 1 million tons. Such a large construction tonnage is equivalent to completing the construction task of 1,000 Ford-class aircraft carriers every year.
In the eyes of outsiders, with such a large construction order in hand, China and South Korea should make a lot of money, but in fact this is not the case. From the perspective of profit, the global civilian shipbuilding industry is in a state of serious low-profit operation. For example, the completion of a single 250,000-ton container liner can only get a net profit of at most 3 million US dollars, which is pitifully small! And even if the order is obtained, the shipyard will always face the phenomenon of not being able to receive the order payment from the shipowner, and even cause the shipyard to go bankrupt. In addition, the shipyard must “bite the bullet” to start construction, otherwise a large number of workers will be lost and the equipment will gradually be scrapped.
In order to survive, China and South Korea compete by lowering prices, resulting in thinner and thinner profits. The United States has been competing for orders by giving subsidies, but it is also difficult. Therefore, the 8 Orcus attack nuclear submarines are very precious to the United States! What you need to know is that the final profit of this project is equivalent to all the profits of China and South Korea in the past 20 years.
Source: Sina News
