Belfast's Harland & Wolff shipyard has opened a new fabrication hall for three Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ships, according to a Ministry of Defence announcement published on 2 November.
The Resurgent Hall is the centrepiece of Navantia UK's £157 million investment programme across four British yards. Around £100 million of that programme is being invested in Belfast, the department said. Those figures describe the wider investment programme and Belfast allocation, rather than a separately stated price for the hall.
The expanded facility adds 5,000 square metres of fabrication space and includes cranes, robotic plasma-cutting equipment and a mechanised panel line. The government says it supports more than 900 skilled jobs and apprenticeships in Belfast; that is not presented here as 900 newly created posts. Ministry of Defence announcement.
Navantia UK is the prime contractor for the Fleet Solid Support programme, leading fabrication and final assembly of RFA Resurgent, Reliant and Resourceful. The ships are intended to replenish Royal Navy task groups at sea. The release describes £1.6 billion in Ministry of Defence funding for that programme and says all three ships are due to enter service in the early 2030s.
The department also says work is progressing on schedule and within budget. Those are the government's statements in this announcement, rather than findings from an independent project audit.
For Belfast, the immediate development is additional shipbuilding capacity tied to an existing naval order. The new hall's opening is a construction milestone; it does not mean the three ships have been delivered or entered service.
