Rolls-royce to build reactors for Australian nuclear submarines

NUCLEAR reactors powering the nextgeneration Australian submarines being built under the Aukus defence pact will be made by Rolls-royce to a British design, officials have said.

The deal for the submarines – which are intended to help Australia counter Chinese aggression and will be delivered from the 2040s – will also secure the future of the UK’S manufacturing yard at Barrow-in-furness, Cumbria, for decades to come.

In addition to the reactors, Britain is expected to supply other vital parts including elements of the vessels’ sonar arrays. Rear Admiral Tim Hodgson, director of nuclear technology at the Ministry of Defence, said: “The anticipation is that Australia will be building that first submarine in Adelaide.

“Inevitably, components of that will be provided from the UK, the reactor plants in their entirety are being provided by the UK.”

Plans to equip Australia with a nuclear submarine are at the heart of the Aukus deal, an information-sharing pact with Britain and the US that was announced in 2021 and led to Canberra cancelling an agreement to purchase a diesel-powered model from the French.

Following 18 months of negotiations between Australia, the US and the UK, an outline deal has now been reached to build up a submarine industry in Australia.

Australian submariners will train on US and Royal Navy vessels from this year. From 2027, the US and UK will patrol Australian waters, and in the next decade, Australia will buy three to five Us-made submarines.

This gives Australia time to build up its skills to construct its own nuclearpowered submarines in Adelaide in the 2040s, to a UK design with some US components, including an American-designed combat system and weapons capability, which could also be present on UK versions of the vessel.

The reactors will be made by Rolls. Sonar and optronic masts – the eyes and ears of a submarine – will be made by Thales, which has a large footprint in the UK and designs its Royal Navy sonar equipment in Britain.

The deal also means a secure future for BAE Systems’ submarine yard in Barrow, Cumbria, for decades to come.

It will train Australian engineers as the country prepares to build Uk-designed vessels in its own yards, as well as working on a British version of the new submarine from the late 2030s so this can replace the Astuteclass generation.

BAE executives will also be pitching for work in Adelaide. BAE is already the largest defence contractor in Australia, building its Hunter-class frigates.

The deal is a boon for Barrow, which has been suffering a damaging cycle of “feast or famine” as major contracts end without anything to immediately replace them.

There was a delay of more than three years between the launch of the final Vanguard-class nuclear deterrent submarine and the laying down of the first Astute attack submarine, leading to a gap in skills as people left the industry.

Rear-adml Hodgson said: “What we really need to do is learn those lessons, since we must not have any gaps, again, like we have between Vanguard and Astute, and moving to a proper pipeline is the way to do this.”

There could also be other parts of the vessels being built in Britain, he said, although a lot of the details are yet to be ironed out, including the value of the deal to UK industry.

He added: “There will be other elements that will contribute to that. And the real detailed plan needs to work out exactly what the scope of that modularisation and shipping might be.”