NEWS

Philadelphia’s shipyard has reached a deal to build a pair of oil tankers, providing work at the site through 2014.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports Aker Philadelphia Shipyard will build a pair of 115,000-ton tankers for Exxon Mobil Corp. to ferry crude from Alaska to the West Coast.

Neither Aker nor ExxonMobil would discuss terms of the deal, but the chairman of the Philadelphia Shipyard Development Corp. put the value of each ship at more than $200 million.

Aker officials say the projects would require a total workforce of more than 1,000. Currently more than 400 work at the yard.

The shipyard is currently building a pair of 46,000-ton tankers but has no buyers. The state kicked in $42 million for that project to help keep the yard open.