DATE: Tuesday, April 15, 1997               TAG: 9704150290

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   55 lines

NORSHIPCO WINS CONTRACT METRO MACHINE LOSES OUT ON DEAL THAT COULD HACVE HELPED TO REVIVE STRUGGLING YARD

Good news for one Norfolk shipyard is bad news for another.

Norshipco has won a $27.8 million contract for the conversion of the ammunition ship Mount Baker. It's a contract, however, that Metro Machine Corp. had been counting on to resuscitate its business.

The Military Sealift Command awarded the contract Monday to Norshipco, the largest private yard in South Hampton Roads.

``It's a very nice piece of work,'' said Ernest C. Reilly, Norshipco's vice president of contract administration.

``Everybody's disappointed,'' said Phil Evans, business agent for the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 2000, which represents Metro's hourly workers. ``Everybody was counting on that job to bring them back to work.''

Metro has laid off all but 21 of its nearly 500 production workers since it completed work on the Navy destroyer Scott in late February, Evans said. Nearly 30 were released last week, he said.

The contract would have buoyed Metro Machine for nearly a year. Expected to take 11 months, the conversion will result in a ship that can be operated with a much smaller crew.

It is the fourth of the seven-ship Kilauea class of ammunition ships, which is slowly being transferred to the Military Sealift Command for operation by civilian crews. The conversion reduces the crew requirement from about 400 sailors to 125 civilians and 24 sailors.

The Mount Baker will arrive July 1 at Norshipco. The job will help fill what often is a lag in ship repair work during the summer.

The contract could grow to $31.6 million if certain optional work is performed.

``The summer doesn't look too bad now,'' Norshipco's Reilly said. ``We've got a little drop coming up in May, but we're looking at half a dozen jobs that could fill that up.''

Norshipco employs more than 2,200 workers at its plant on the Elizabeth River's Southern Branch.

It has done similar conversions of the Mount Baker's sister ship Flint and the combat stores ships Niagara Falls and Concord. Norshipco sued the Military Sealift Command in March 1996 over work on the Niagara Falls, saying that it did $20 million of extra work on the $22.5 million conversion. That dispute has been settled confidentially, Reilly said.

Meanwhile, Metro Machine has an empty plate through the spring and into the summer.

``I don't know who's more disappointed - us or the company,'' said the Boilermakers' Evans.

Metro Machine President Richard Goldbach did not return a call on Monday.

The company's next significant contract begins in late July or August at its Chester, Pa., yard or a yard in New Jersey. That job, on a Navy fleet oiler, will require a maximum of 250 workers from Norfolk.

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