Austal Limited

Austal Limited runs three businesses out of Henderson, Western Australia: shipbuilding, sustainment, and technology. The shipbuilding arm splits between defence and government work and commercial vessels, and it has delivered more than 350 hulls since John Rothwell started the company in 1988. Aluminium is the material the group is known for, though its Mobile, Alabama yard now runs a steel assembly line as well. For the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Border Force it has built the Armidale class, the Cape class and the ten Evolved Cape-class patrol boats ordered under SEA 1445 Phase 1, while a separate facility near Henderson turned out the 24 steel-hulled Guardian-class patrol boats gifted to Pacific nations under Project SEA 3036 Phase 1. In August 2025 the Commonwealth signed a Strategic Shipbuilding Agreement naming Austal Defence Australia its strategic shipbuilder for Tier 2 surface combatants at Henderson, and the first work under it is Army amphibious lift: 18 Landing Craft Medium under LAND 8710 Phase 1A, then eight Landing Craft Heavy on a Damen LST100 design worth roughly four billion Australian dollars.

Austal USA is the group's second centre of gravity. It built the Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ships and the Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports, and has since moved into steel with the Navajo-class towing, salvage and rescue ships, the Heritage-class Offshore Patrol Cutter for the US Coast Guard, an Auxiliary Floating Dry Dock Medium, LCU 1700 landing craft, Expeditionary Medical Ships, and a contract worth up to 3.195 billion US dollars for as many as seven T-AGOS 25 ocean surveillance ships. Yards in Vietnam and the Philippines carry the commercial output, mainly high-speed passenger and vehicle ferries, offshore windfarm support craft and platform supply vessels. Oman took high speed support vessels. Service centres in Darwin, Cairns, San Diego and Muscat keep delivered fleets running between refits.

Sustainment is the second segment, covering vessel sustainment, spares inventory and a training and consultancy practice that has run courses for Pacific patrol boat crews. The technology segment holds advanced manufacturing, additive manufacturing, asset and lifecycle management, autonomy, and platform systems. Platform systems means MARINELINK-Prime, the integrated monitoring, alarm and control system fitted across the fleet, together with motion control equipment. Autonomy has moved fastest. Working with Greenroom Robotics and the classification society DNV, Austal completed a Patrol Boat Autonomy Trial in 2024 in which the software executed 148 autonomous collision avoidance manoeuvres across 705 nautical miles, and in late 2025 its AROS controller, designed at Henderson, received approval in principle as the safety interface between a vessel's engineering systems and a navigational autonomy system. Revenue reached A$1.82 billion in 2025 across a workforce of roughly 4,500 people.