Work begins on first Scorpene submarine for India

CHERBOURG, (France): France's state shipbuilder DCN began on Friday manufacturing parts for the first of six Scorpene submarines ordered by India.

New Delhi agreed in October 2005 to buy six of the Franco-Spanish submarines for 2.4 billion euros. The deal is a technology transfer agreement: the Scorpenes will be assembled in India, but the Direction des Compagnies Navales (DCN) will produce various key parts that require equipment unavailable at Indian shipyards.

Some 200 technicians and engineers at the DCN will be working full time on the submarine parts for the next eight years, the project's director, Xavier l'Helgoualc'h, said at a ceremony to mark the cutting of the first plate in the northern port of Cherbourg.

The Scorpene is a 1,750-tonne (1,929-ton) submarine, 67 metres (220 feet) long and capable of diving to a depth of 300 metres.

Designed for coastal defence, it can stay at sea for up to 45 days with a crew of 31. It is equipped with modern sonar detection equipment, six torpedo tubes and missile launchers; these are among the parts being produced in France, along with the propellers, hatches and front and back bulkheads.

DCN developed the submarine jointly with the Spanish shipbuilder Navantia (formerly Izar), with the French defence group Thales providing the electronics.

Work on assembling the first Scorpene is scheduled to begin in December 2006 at the Mazagaon shipyard in Mumbai. The vessel should be ready by 2012, the Indian defence ministry said, with the remaining five being delivered at intervals of one per year thereafter.