AMERICANMADE
Big Oil knew about this for 50 years
In the 1970s, Chevron, Unocal, and Texaco all drilled for the same energy source.
It worked.
They walked away anyway.
Why? Because tapping it would have threatened the most profitable business model in human history. Oil.
So the verdict stood for fifty years: “We can’t get to it.”
Not because they couldn’t. Because they wouldn’t.
Now one company has spent sixty years quietly proving them wrong.
Google just signed a 15-year contract.
Bill Gates just wrote a $100 million check.
And on July 4th, the government hands this energy source its biggest advantage ever.
The oil companies are scrambling back in. But one company already owns the entire chain.
See the company Big Oil is too late to stop >>
The U.S. Navy wants 381 warships.
Right now, it has 296.
That gap — 85 ships — is the biggest in a generation. And here’s the part that should worry you…
America forgot how to build ships.
Less than one percent of the world’s commercial vessels are built in the U.S. Think about that. The nation that won World War II by churning out a Liberty Ship every 42 days now builds almost nothing for the global fleet.
China launches more ships in a single month than America builds in a year.
The Navy calls it a “doom loop.” Ships take longer. They cost more. Yards can’t hire fast enough. So Congress funds fewer. And the fleet keeps shrinking.
But that loop is about to break.
In February, the White House dropped the Maritime Action Plan. Experts call it the most ambitious maritime policy since FDR’s wartime shipbuilding push.
The plan has four pillars. Modernize the yards. Train the workers. Protect the industrial base. And fund the whole thing with new fees on foreign-built ships entering U.S. ports.
Those fees could raise between $66 billion and $1.5 trillion over ten years. And two bipartisan bills — the SHIPS Act and the Building Ships in America Act — already have the votes to pass the Senate.
But money alone won’t fix this.
The industry needs 200,000 to 250,000 new workers over the next decade. Welders. Pipefitters. Naval architects. Front-line managers.
And 27 percent of the current maritime workforce is 55 or older. They’re heading for the door.
That’s why the Workforce Pell Grant matters. It went live yesterday — July 1. Now, training programs as short as eight weeks qualify for federal aid. A welder can go from classroom to shipyard in months, not years.
So who gets the contracts? Three names own this space.
HII is the gorilla. Based in Virginia and Mississippi, it’s the only company on earth that builds U.S. nuclear aircraft carriers and one of only two that builds nuclear submarines. Last quarter, HII pulled in $3.1 billion in revenue — up 13.4 percent from a year ago. Its total backlog sits at $54 billion.
General Dynamics runs two critical yards. Bath Iron Works in Maine builds Arleigh Burke destroyers. NASSCO in San Diego handles tankers, expeditionary ships, and fleet auxiliaries.
Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama builds littoral combat ships and other aluminum vessels for the fleet.
Below the big three sits a supply chain thousands deep. Steel mills. Electronics shops. Valve manufacturers. Paint companies. The Navy says its shipbuilding spending touches suppliers in all 50 states.
And the demand is locked in. The Navy’s 30-year plan calls for 364 new vessels. That’s roughly 12 ships a year. Every year. For three decades.
$54 billion. That’s HII’s total backlog as of March 2026. At current production rates, it would take years to work through. That’s built-in revenue for America’s largest military shipbuilder — and it keeps growing.
New Q1 contract awards alone totaled $4 billion.
HII is the closest thing to a pure-play on American shipbuilding. It builds every nuclear carrier. It’s one of just two yards building nuclear submarines. And it’s growing.
Q1 revenue came in at $3.1 billion. The company guided full-year shipbuilding revenue between $9.7 and $9.9 billion. New contracts in Q1 alone hit $4 billion.
That $54 billion backlog gives HII years of revenue visibility. And with the Maritime Action Plan pushing billions into yards and procurement, the pipeline should only get thicker.
The risk? Margins. Shipbuilding operating margins sit between 5.5 and 6.5 percent — thin by defense standards. Labor shortages could slow throughput. But the tailwinds are real. Bipartisan support. A fleet that needs to grow by nearly a third. And billions in new funding heading to the yards.
This is a sector with generational demand. And HII is the name at the center of it.