The Ship Model Forum

Canada's Navy 'Rents' Chilean Resupply Ship

VICTORIA, B.C. — Chile and Spain will provide resupply ships to the Royal Canadian Navy on a temporary basis as the Canadian government tries to fast-track the leasing and conversion of a commercial vessel that can provide fuel and provisions to its warships.

The Royal Canadian Navy's senior leaders have been scrambling over the last six months to put in place such measures because of ongoing delays in the construction of its two new supply ships.

Those two vessels — called joint support ships — won't be ready until 2021. In the meantime, the RCN took its two aging supply ships out of service, leaving it with no way of its own to provide fuel, ammunition and other supplies to its vessels at sea.

The Chilean Navy ship, Almirante Montt, arrived at the naval base here on July 3 and will be available for 40 sea days, RCN spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Desmond James said.

Negotiations are still underway with Spain for the provision of a supply ship to be used for the RCN's Atlantic fleet.

The Royal Canadian Navy estimates it will need to rely on its allies and a leased commercial tanker for at least the next six years.

Defence Minister Jason Kenney announced June 23 that the government was entering into discussions with Chantier Davie Shipyard of Levis, Quebec, about the acquisition of what is being called an "interim" supply ship. Those talks would look at the whether the company can provide a commercial vessel that can be converted to provide refueling and other resupply functions for the Navy.
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Cost of the MLSA with the Chilean Navy 


The cost of the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA) with Chile was approximately $4.3M USD, which using conversion rates at the time (1 USD = 1.33 CAD) amounted to roughly $5.7M CAD.
This cost covered roughly 100 days of support and transit time which included the 48 days required to make the trip from Valparaiso, Chile, to Esquimalt, British Columbia, and back. The time covered by the arrangement also included the time spent at sea with Pacific Fleet ships, as well as the ship’s time alongside in Esquimalt.

Estimated Cost of the MLSA with the Spanish Navy

The estimated cost of the MLSA with Spain is approximately $1.4M Euros or, using current exchange rates as of February 12, 2016 (1 EUR = 1.55731 CAD), roughly $2.2M CAD. The estimated cost of this MLSA covers 56 days, which includes the transit from Spain to Halifax, and back (16 days), time at sea with Atlantic Fleet ships, and time alongside in Halifax.

Difference in the Cost of the two MLSAs


A large part of the difference in the cost of the two MLSAs can be attributed to the difference in number of days the agreements cover – 100 days of support to the RCN in the case of the MLSA with Chile, as compared to 56 days of support in the case of the MLSA with Spain.

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