The State Department has approved Kuwait’s request to continue its purchase of engineering technical and maintenance support services for C, D, E and F variants of the F/A-18 fighter aircraft from the U.S. government under a potential $1.8 billion foreign military sales agreement.
Sigmatech, Kay and Associates, KBR (NYSE: KBR), L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX), Boeing (NYSE: BA), General Electric, (NYSE: GE), Industrial Financial Services and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) will serve as principal contractors in the FMS deal, which includes F/A-18 avionics software upgrades, ground support equipment and F404/F414 engine and engine test cell support, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Tuesday.
The government of Kuwait expects the transaction to help improve its capability to address existing and future regional threats.
The contractors will also provide publications and technical documentation, program support, engineering change proposals, financial and logistics support services under the proposed sale, which will require the deployment of 735 U.S. government and contractor representatives to the Middle Eastern country to help maintain operational capability over a three-year period.
DSCA said additional vendors could be named through a competitive award process and that it has notified Congress of the sales deal.
