The bid period for the Tustumena Replacement Vessel construction project has been extended to June 25 “at the request of the bidders,” according to the Alaska Marine Highway System.
The state originally intended to open bids this past Thursday.
No further detail about the bid period extension was provided by an AMHS spokesperson in a Thursday response to a Ketchikan Daily News inquiry.
On Friday, the agency announced the bidding-period extension via a social media account.
“The extension was granted in response to requests from prospective bidders to allow for additional time to finalize comprehensive proposals,” states the announcemnet. “AMHS remains committed to ensuring a competitive and robust bidding process for this critical infrastructure project, which will provide a modern, reliable, and efficient vessel to serve the communities of Southcentral, Kodiak Island, and Southwest Alaska for decades to come.”
The project aims to replace the aging Tustumena, which was built in 1964 and continues to provide service between Southcentral and Southwest Alaska.
The current Tustumena is 296 feet in length and has capacity for 160 passengers and approximately 34 20-foot vehicles, according to AMHS information.
The TRV will have a length of 330 feet and capacity for 250 passengers and 58 cars, according to AMHS.
The replacement project design was modified in mid 2023 from diesel-only propulsion system to a diesel electric hybrid.
The change is intended to “provide additional generator capacity for operational redundancy in the power system to safely operating in the remote areas of the Alaska Peninsula,” according to information provided to the Daily News early this year by Alaska Department of Transportation spokesperson Shannon McCarthy. “There was never a redesign of the hull, when we modified the diesel electric generator power system to provide redundancy, the generators fit within the current designed generator compartments.”
The state has not publicly released an engineer’s estimate for the cost of the project, although a fiscal year 2022 state request for a federal grant cited a project cost of about $325 million.
The Alaska Statewide Transportation Improvement Program shows funding of $333 million for the TRV project.
Most of that project funding is from federal sources, with the state using “toll credits” for part of the state’s required 20% match.
“Toll credits are earned when we reinvest AMHS revenues back into the system through the overhauls,” McCarthy wrote in a February email response to a Daily News inquiry. “This reduces the amount of UGF match, and allows us to apply additional federal dollars toward the project.”
Using toll credits brings the state’s match requirement down to 4% or $13.3 million, according to McCarthy.
She verified that there are no shipyards in Alaska that are capable of building a ship of the TRV’s size.
“The project is open to any capable shipyard which meets the minimum
qualifications,” McCarthy wrote. “The potential interested shipyards are in Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oregon, and Washington (state).”
The recently completed AMHS Long Range Plan envisioned that the Tustumena Replacement Vessel would be in service in the first quarter of 2029.
This story was originally published by the Ketchikan Daily News.