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US Awards $951M in Contract Modifications for Polar Cutter Program

Polar Security Cutter
USCG awarded contract modifications in an effort to move the troubled Polar Security Cutter program forward (Halter/Bollinger)

Published Mar 26, 2025 3:38 PM by The Maritime Executive


The troubled U.S. effort to build a new generation of Polar Security Cutters received an important boost with the U.S. Coast Guard awarding a $951.6 million contract modification to Bollinger Shipyards. The program has struggled to move forward with years of design delays and cost overruns with the builders now asserting that the project is on a solid path forward.

The shipyard reports it received the modification which advances the Detail Design and Construction phase of the first of the three vessels. They report it was structured as a Fixed-Price-Incentive-Firm Target (FPIF) contract modification reflecting the efforts to get the project on track. Congressional members and the independent Congressional Budget Office have been very critical of the project and poor management and organization. The failures of the project were cited among the reasons that the Trump administration dismissed Admiral Linda Fagan as Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard on the president’s first day in office in January.

“Securing this contract modification has truly been a Herculean effort and underscores the incredible trust the U.S. Government has placed in Bollinger to build and deliver the first heavy polar icebreaker in half a century,” said Ben Bordelon, President and CEO of Bollinger Shipyards. He recognized the issues in the project saying, “hard work and dedication have successfully put the PSC program on a strong path forward after a rocky start under the previous, foreign-owned builder. We now look forward to receiving the green light to begin full production.”

Bollinger took over the project in 2022 when it acquired the VT Halter shipyard. A Congressional report found that the project which had begun in 2014 was deeply flawed with significant design issues with the vessel which it said Bollinger was working to address.

Since acquiring the shipyard, Bollinger highlights that it has increased its Mississippi workforce by over 61 percent. Further, it says that production rolls at the Mississippi shipyard group have increased by more than 178 percent. It expects to continue to increase these roles as the project moves forward. The current contract modification primarily supports operations at Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding, with additional project contributions from facilities located in Massachusetts, Illinois, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, and other regions. 

Bollinger now reports that completion of the first Polar Security Cutter is anticipated by May 2030. That places the project six years behind the originally anticipated schedule. The Congressional report on the project acknowledged the complexity of the project and the difficulties associated with building a heavy icebreaker and recognized that it was 50 years since the U.S. had built such a vessel.

Poor organization and design issues were cited as key contributors to the cost overruns. Earlier estimates set the projected cost at $1.3 billion for the first vessel but the latest Congressional estimate targeted $1.9 billion, a nearly 40 percent increase over the Coast Guard’s projections. They however expected the project would realize cost synergies for the second and third vessels which CBO set at $1.6 billion each. The total cost for the project was last estimated at over $5 billion.

The U.S. Coast Guard has been forced to scramble with life extension programs to keep its only large icebreakers in operation. It currently depends on the Polar Star which was commissioned in 1976, and recently marked its 49th mission to Antarctica. Healy, commissioned in 1999, had one of its engines replaced due to a failure and this year was temporarily sidelined by an engine room fire. Stretched to maintain the mission, the USCG acquired from Edison Chouest Offshore a polar class 3 icebreaker built in 2012 as an icebreaking anchor-handler. She will enter service by 2026 as the USCGC Storis.

The USCG and the Navy Integrated Program Office received approval in December 2024 to begin building the first of the new icebreakers, which will be called Polar Sentinel. Bollinger in 2023 cut steel for a series of up to eight prototype modules as it sought to demonstrate the capabilities and advance the project. The contract modifications are an important step while Congressional members said it was also a sign of the urgency placed on the project.