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Brazilian study recommends procuring Siroco LPD
Inigo Guevara, Washington, DC - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
04 February 2015
Siroco (L 9012), a Foudre-class landing ships dock, is being eyed for procurement by Brazil. Source: HS/Harry M Steele
A Brazilian Navy (MB) evaluation commission from the General Directorate of Naval Material recommended procurement of the French Navy
Siroco (L 9012) Foudre-class landing platform dock (LPD) in late January, according to local reports.
The Brazilian commission surveyed the 12,000-ton
Siroco at its homeport of Toulon in mid-December 2014.
Siroco 's latest operational deployment, in November 2014, included transporting troops and supplies to support deployment of French Air Force Mirage 2000s to Jordan as part of operations against the Islamic State.
Siroco was commissioned in December 1998 and is the second of the Foudre-class LPDs, the first of which was sold in 2011 to the Chilean Navy. Chilean officials had announced interest in
Siroco since 2013; however, Chile's new government announced in late 2014 that it would no longer seek a second LPD.
At 1,536 m 2 ,
Siroco has a slightly larger helicopter deck than sister ship
Foudre .
Siroco is scheduled for decommission from the French Navy in June 2015, following its last operational deployment, which will be to the Gulf of Guinea. The ship will decommission without replacement, as the fourth Mistral-class landing helicopter deck originally planned was cancelled in France's 2013 defence White Paper.
Brazilian reports indicate that the ship will be procured for EUR80 million (USD91 million), plus maintenance and reconditioning services to be provided by France's DCNS.
ANALYSIS
Given the relatively poor expectations for Brazil's economy in 2015 and the uncertainty from the low oil prices, an opportunity buy of
Siroco is likely, especially because the ship would be a much needed replacement for ageing ex-US Thomaston-class LPDs.
The navy's Programa de Obtenção de Navios Anfíbios (PRONAnf) requires two 12,500-ton ships with a large helicopter hangar and the ability to transport up to 490 troops.
Siroco 's four-helicopter capacity and 450-troop capacity closely matches these requirements and would be available by the end of 2015 or early 2016.
While PRONAnf specifies that the preferred choice would be for local construction of a foreign design already in service with an international navy; it does not discard secondhand procurement.
The MB's medium- and long-term requirements outlined in the National Defence Strategy (END) and translated into the navy's re-equipment programme (PRM) are vast and need to be matched by adequate budgets. The END specifically favours strengthening the local shipbuilding industry, but the MB in the past has resorted to more pragmatic opportunity buys, especially for large ships. For example, in 2008 the navy bought
Garcia D'Avila (ex-Sir Galahad) and
Almirante Saboia (ex-Sir Bedivere) landing ship tanks from the UK's Royal Fleet Auxiliary for a combined USD47 million.
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