Austal said the company would immediately start work on a $US140 million ($A137.87 million) facility expansion and workforce development. "Construction of the first LCS vessel will commence in early 2012 and is scheduled for delivery in 2015," Austal said in a statement. The warship would be built at Austal's shipyard in Mobile, Alabama and result in the company more than doubling its workforce to 3,800 employees, it said. "This contract has firmly established Austal as an international defence shipbuilder, is a strong vote of confidence in Austal's aluminium trimaran LCS design, and also reflects the strength and capability of our USA operations and highly-skilled workforce," Austal chairman John Rothwell said. The US Navy said the value of the ship construction portion of the two contracts was $US3.62 billion ($A3.56 billion) for Lockheed Martin and $US3.52 billion ($A3.47 billion) for Austal.