Australian Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy visited Newport News Shipbuilding Charleston Operations in South Carolina on July 27.

The visit, in support of the trilateral Australia, United Kingdom and United States (AUKUS) partnership, included a tour of the production facility and discussions with company leaders about HII’s distributed shipbuilding initiative to increase shipbuilding throughput.

“It was a pleasure to tour this facility and see firsthand the capability established here, and the impact it is already having on the U.S. submarine industrial base,” Conroy said.