H.I. Fraser has hosted Minister for the French Armed Forces Madame Florence Parly and Minister for Defence Industry Steven Ciobo at a Joint Venture signing with Issartel.
HI Fraser Managing Director Chris Williams told ADM that the agreement relates to the provision of gas and fluid components.
"Issartel are a trusted part of Naval Groups Supply chain and they manufacture various gas and fluid components," Williams said. "H.I. Fraser brings knowledge of manufacturing submarine gas and fluid components for Collins along with a deep knowledge of Australian manufacturing capability."
According to Williams, both Issartel and H.I. Fraser have been in discussion with Naval Group about how to realise Australian manufacturing opportunities for the Sea 1000 program.
"H.I. Fraser and Issartel first met 3 years ago. Since then we have been working together to both understand the Naval Group engineering/procurement process and how we can leverage Australian manufacturing capability.
"We realise that there is a long way to go before the first opportunities will emerge, but we have a lot of work to do in the meantime qualifying our supply chains and, paraphrasing Mr Herve Guillou, CEO Naval Group, building our shared knowledge of the “know what”, “know how” and “know why” to manufacture submarine gas and fluid components."
The company, however, will be helped by the expertise it gains through the Collins program.
"We are proud of our position in the marketplace," Williams said. "Our lives are in the niche complex gas and fluid system parts of the supply chain. An example is parts we manufacture in Australia that are in critical systems on Collins submarines."